


A Single Blade Of Grass

by glasslogic



Series: Midnight Of the Century [2]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Multi, au supernatural
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-02-09
Updated: 2012-02-09
Packaged: 2017-10-30 21:11:20
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 32,489
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/336193
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/glasslogic/pseuds/glasslogic
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It has been two months since Sam and Jessica followed a vision and rescued Dean from certain death, and the physical wounds have mostly healed. But lingering questions still trouble the new relationship they have forged and two months is six weeks more of doing nothing than Dean can handle gracefully. What should be an easy recovery of stolen items in South Carolina looks to be the perfect opportunity to try their new dynamic in the field, but things that look easy are often deceptive. Between cursed jewelry, madness, and the involvement of a shadowy organization they have been warned repeatedly to avoid, the repercussions they face are like nothing they could have ever imagined. This story is a direct sequel to Midnight Of the Century</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Single Blade Of Grass

**Author's Note:**

> This story was written for the 2011 sn_cross Big Bang. I would like to thank elusive_life_77, canter76, briarwood, alchemynerd, and heard-the-owl for being amazing betas, and of course caz2y5, who did the outstanding artwork! All errors are most decidedly mine.

 

 

 **Chapter One**  
  
Dean walked into Bobby's house, mopping sweat from his neck with a ragged towel and smiling at nothing in particular. Dust and a few withered leaves clung to the worn denim of his pants and the split in his lip still tasted raw, but the entertainment of the previous couple of hours had been worth it. At the tail end of February, South Dakota was normally still buried under several feet of snow, but an unseasonable warm spell and the resulting melt had been too much to resist. Dean had taken eager advantage of the break in the weather, spending as much time outside as possible. Sometimes alone, but usually Jessica went along with him.  
  
The odd relationship the three of them had forged was still new and had it's awkward edges. Sam and Dean had a lifetime of history to fall back on, but Dean and Jess were still learning about each other. Time in the yard, working on training Jess into competent back-up, provided a good excuse for them to spend time together. It made the work of building his own muscle and stamina back up from the state he had let himself fall into more enjoyable as well. Jess had proved to be an okay shot, more so with a rifle than a handgun, and she had the basics down for survival skills from camping trips with her uncle. Unfortunately, her hand-to-hand combat ability was non-existent. The snow-free ground provided the perfect playground to work on that problem, and Dean was finding a lot of side benefits to playing teacher. Jess didn’t seem to mind.  
  
Upstairs, Dean heard the water kick on in the shower as Jessica took advantage of first dibs to thaw out under the hot spray. Even with the ground clear and dried to a dusty brown, the air was still bitter. Since sweating in the freezing cold had never really been his favorite thing to do. Dean was looking forward to his own turn in the bathroom. Having four adults living in a one shower house had its disadvantages.  
  
Dean didn’t think Sam had so much as stuck his nose outside the entire week. He was busy switching his time between Bobby’s library and whatever legal-type things he was angsting over. His resistance, when Dean tried to get him involved in other activities, had grown steadily more entrenched until Dean had finally given up in disgust. He’d shrugged it off philosophically. If Jess learned to kick Sam’s ass while Sam sulked inside ignoring the world, his little brother totally deserved what he got.  
  
Suddenly aware he wasn’t alone, Dean turned to find Bobby leaning in the kitchen doorway, watching him speculatively.  
  
“What?”  
  
Bobby just took a long pull from the beer in his hand.  
  
“Something wrong, Bobby?” Dean asked finally, after several long moments of silence.  
  
“You’re awfully handsy with a woman who’s engaged to your brother.”  
  
Dean cursed inside. He had noticed Bobby watching his interactions with Jess with more interest over the past few days, and Dean knew that some of the “training” going on in the yard was pretty obviously on the wrong side of the line for a man dealing with his future sister-in-law. He wasn’t really surprised Bobby was calling him on it, but he was in no way ready to have the conversation and didn’t feel a shred of guilt over mentally assigning that particular duty to his brother. This whole threesome thing had been Sam’s idea -- _he_  could tell Bobby.  
  
“You got a problem with it?”  
  
Bobby took another drink. “Not if Sam doesn’t.”  
  
“I suppose we’re good then,” Dean said firmly, meeting Bobby’s level gaze.  
  
“I suppose.” Bobby nodded slowly, and turned back into the kitchen. Dean swore under his breath and went to find Sam, his good mood completely evaporated.  
  
The three of them tried hard to keep their arrangement under Bobby’s radar, but it was difficult when sharing the same house with the man. Jess and Sam had taken the guest bedroom at the top of the stairs, and Dean had the couch in the living room, but the relationship was new and exciting, and it was killing all of them --or at least Dean-- to know exactly where the other two were (together) and be expected to stay down in the cold by himself. It had been eight weeks so far at Bobby’s house, and Dean figured he had actually spent maybe less than half those nights virtuously on the couch. The rest he had spent in the tiny bedroom at the top of the stairs exploring the new ties between himself and Sam and Jess, with muffled laughter and wandering hands, warm bare skin and swollen lips. Then he would wash hastily in the cramped bathroom and sneak back downstairs. It was getting old fast, but he acknowledged that Sam and Jess had a point about his need to get back into shape, and living with Bobby didn’t cut into their finances. The man refused to even hear of them paying for anything but groceries, though he was happy enough to have free labor. This new development could be a problem though.  
  
Sam was, as expected, buried in Bobby’s library.  
  
“I would have thought you’d have finished all these off by the time you were fifteen,” Dean greeted his brother.  
  
Sam looked up and raised an eyebrow. “Back inside so soon?”  
  
Dean snorted. “We’ve been working out for almost four hours, Sam. You should have joined us. Jess is making some good improvement.”  
  
“Really?”  
  
“No. But you still should have come outside. I need a real workout, and you’ve been benched for about seven years. You’re now almost twice as big as you were the last time you did any training. I bet I could take you and Jess on together.”  
  
“It’s nice to see your humble nature reasserting itself,” Sam said absently, attention being drawn back to his book.  
  
“Truth is truth.” Dean leaned against one of the bookcases and gazed out the small window. “I don’t think the good weather is gonna last, though.”  
  
“Probably not.” Sam waited for Dean to say something else, but his brother seemed content to just look out the window.  
  
“There something else you need, Dean?” he finally tried.  
  
“Bobby knows something’s up,” Dean told him, not shifting his gaze.  
  
Sam closed the book on his lap with a sigh. “I’m not surprised.”  
  
“You’re not?”  
  
“It’s not that big of a house and Bobby’s not exactly dim. What did he say?”  
  
Dean shrugged. “Not much, just pretty much that Jess and I seemed a little too friendly. He didn’t actually accuse me of anything or ask any questions.”  
  
Sam was quiet for a minute. “Maybe you should stay on the couch for a few nights.”  
  
“Yeah. That’s exactly what I was thinking.”  
  
“If the ‘training’ involved less giggling and rolling around on the ground, it might also help,” Sam added, dropping the book onto a pile stacked beside his chair.  
  
“Hey! I can’t help it if she’s ticklish, and that wasn’t ‘rolling around’ --we were grappling. It’s totally legit.”  
  
“Try ‘grappling’ things other than her chest.”  
  
Dean looked amused. “Did you know she keeps salt packets in her bra?”  
  
Sam glared.  
  
“Hey.” Dean straightened up, “I tried to drag you outside with us.”  
  
“Yeah,” Sam snorted, “because you and I rolling around on the ground is exactly what Bobby needs to see.”  
  
“You don’t think we can keep it professional?” Dean raised an eyebrow.  
  
Sam muttered something and looked away.  
  
“I couldn’t quite hear that,” Dean suggested, stepping closer until he was standing over Sam who was still slouched in his chair.  
  
Sam sighed. “I just wish all of this wasn’t necessary. That we had our own place.” Dean nodded and reached out to brush Sam’s lips with his thumb. His brother’s eyes darkened and Dean felt a hint of Sam’s tongue slide against his skin. He though about turning the gesture into something more, but knew Sam wouldn't cooperate. Not in the daytime where just anyone could walk in.  
  
Even in the room at night, Sam acted with frustrating restraint. Dean understood Sam’s discomfort with the surroundings, but he was starting to get annoyed with it. Dean enjoyed what they did, but he had no doubts it would be even better if every time he touched Sam, his brother didn’t act like the morality police were going to bust the door down and drag them all off. Actually, Sam would probably prefer that to the more likely scenario of opening the door and finding Bobby there waiting for them. The three of them needed to find a different place to crash, but Sam and Jess flat out refused to go anywhere until Dean was in better condition after the state of neglect he’d fallen into during his last couple of years of solitary hunting. It certainly provided incentive for him to work harder at it.  
  
The floorboards in the hallway creaked and Dean casually dropped his hand from Sam’s face and picked up the other book from Sam’s lap, turning to face the doorway. But it was just Jess who stepped through, hair wrapped in a towel and wearing a baggy robe that had probably hung unused on the back of Bobby’s door for over a decade before she adopted it.  
  
“Shower’s free.”  
  
“Thanks, Jess.”  
  
“No problem. How’s your lip?”  
  
“Sore.” Dean gingerly touched it again.  
  
“Stop poking at it. And next time when I’m flailing wildly in your direction, you should duck. Go take a shower and later Sam and I can flip a coin to see who gets to kiss it better for you.”  
  
“Speaking of which,” Sam interrupted, “Bobby is starting to get suspicious.  
  
“I know,” she shrugged.  
  
“Now  _you_  know?” Dean demanded. “Why am I the last one to find out about these things?”  
  
“He asked me a few days ago if Sam and I were still engaged. It completely slipped my mind, probably all of the excitement of my new work-out routine. But you had to know this was coming eventually, right? Did you talk to him about it?”  
  
“No, absolutely not,” Dean said flatly. “I brushed him off and he went back into the kitchen.”  
  
Jess nodded. “Smells like spaghetti for dinner. Do we want to wait and see if he brings it up directly or start the conversation ourselves?”  
  
“Do we think he will?” Sam asked.  
  
Dean nodded reluctantly. “He approached Jess, and he spoke to me. You’re the only one he hasn’t mentioned something to about it. If he thinks we are doing something behind your back… yeah, he’s gonna bring it up.”  
  
Jess shrugged one shoulder. “You guys know him better than I do. I’ll go along with whatever you want.”  
  
Sam frowned. “Let’s wait, then. If he comes to me... I’ll tell him as little as possible to assure him no one is sneaking around.”  
  
“That’s graceful.”  
  
Sam glared. “You have a better idea, Dean? I’m all ears if you do.”  
  
“Nope, this one is all on you, Sam. Let me know how it goes.” Dean flashed his brother an encouraging look and sauntered out and down the hallway to claim the shower. Sam stared after him, an irritated look on his face until Jess dropped her wet towel on his lap and gave him a pointed look while finger combing her hair. “Did you really want Dean to be the one to discuss this with Bobby?”  
  
“Do you really keep salt packets in your bra?” Sam countered.  
  
Jess smiled, accepting the shift in topic. “Come out with us tomorrow and find out for yourself!” she called over her shoulder as she headed out of the room in search of dry clothes.  
  
  
 **Chapter Two**  
  
Days went by and Bobby didn’t say anything to Sam about the situation. Dean stayed virtuously on the couch for almost a week before he started his nightly visitations again, and slowly, life went on. But it wasn’t quite as relaxing for Dean as it had been before his run-in with Bobby. He was starting to feel awkward and ...judged whenever Bobby was around. There wasn’t anything he could point to or call Bobby on, just a feeling. Jess was still playing the “you know him best” card and Sam refused to take any action at all, claiming that if Bobby was bothered he would speak up. But as far as Dean was concerned Bobby  _had_  spoken up, and pretending there wasn’t a problem didn’t sit right. But he could hardly fault Sam for preferring the current arrangement to the possible fall-out of a direct confrontation.  
  
He had almost reached the point of forcing a conversation, just to get rid of the awful feeling of suspense, when something happened that made it moot.  
  
“I’ll be away for a few days,” Bobby grunted. He dropped a heavy duffle bag by the front door and picked up a loose stack of mail on the table there, then flipped through it business like. He pulled an envelope out, folded it and shoved it in one pocket, before turning to face his house guests. Dean and Jess had been in the middle of finally dragging a still-reluctant Sam outside and all three were looking at him in surprise.  
  
“Got some business in Wyoming that needs my attention. You three going to be here when I get back?”  
  
Dean traded looks with Sam. After a moment of awkward silence, Jess drove a surreptitious elbow into Sam’s ribs. “If you don’t mind us being here,” Sam spoke up, giving her a sidelong glare.  
  
“You boys are the closest thing to kin I’ve got living. I’ve already told you to stay as long as you please. Still planning on training Jess up as a hunter?”  
  
“Not a hunter,” Jessica corrected. “Back-up. Sam’s going to work off a laptop and a cell phone, Dean is going to hunt, and I’m-”  
  
“Going to make sure everyone’s toenails stay trimmed and sparkly,” Dean cut in, making sure Sam was firmly between them.  
  
Jessica gave him a look that promised retribution, “-going to do translation work. Glad to know you value my contributions to our little family though, Dean.”  
  
“Hey! I care about the state of my toenails.”  
  
Sam rolled his eyes. “We’ll still be here, Bobby. You need us to do anything while you’re gone?”  
  
“Yep,” Bobby hefted his bag and pulled the door open. “I want you to teach your girl to cleanse a house of spirits. You can start with this one. Pay close attention to the staircase and don’t skimp on the Rosemary, something is making them squeak awfully fierce in the night.” He gave them all a level look while smiles grew strained and the awkward pause lengthened.  
  
Finally Dean coughed and nodded. “Sure thing, Bobby.”  
  
Bobby snorted. “Back in about a week.”

~~~~~

  
After the door had closed behind Bobby, leaving the three of them staring at each other in some chagrin, Sam had suggested that the least they could do was what Bobby had asked. Rummaging up the herbs and finding the right ritual hadn’t taken very long, and Jess was a quick study. They traded off, taking the rooms one at a time until the entire house from rafters to cellar had been gone over. The whole project had taken the rest of the day, but that had as much to do with taking a long break to do something ill-advised with a straight back chair and some edible body paint as it did with teaching the ropes of spiritual pest control to a novice.  
  
Fixing the chair had taken some time, too.  
  
Jessica hadn’t seen any reason to stop with a metaphysical cleansing, and insisted on a more traditional scrub down too. She airily ignored Sam’s professed shock at the fact that she knew what a duster was for and hit Dean with a pillow when he suggested they check her for possession after she went through the second bottle of Windex. Reluctance and groaning aside, the house was thoroughly cleaned, in all respects.  
  
They also worked on fixing the stairs. Not enough to let an intruder climb them in silence, just enough to make a squeak-free path for a person who knew where to step.  
  
Bobby’s absence had provided more than just free space for fooling around without fear of getting caught, and a whirl-wind catch up on what felt like a decade’s worth of chores; it had also, finally, given Dean space and time alone. For the eight weeks they had been there, Jess and Sam hadn’t given him five minutes of free time unless it was the dead of night or they knew Bobby was around. And even in the dead of night, Dean was never  _certain_ of privacy. Bobby had the justifiably paranoid habit of checking his perimeter when he woke at random hours and Dean didn’t want any surprise encounters. Dean wasn’t even sure the constant company was a conscious thing, they were just always  _there_ , and he couldn’t ask them to leave him alone because then they would want to know _why_. But now Bobby was away and Jess was in town doing who-knew-what and Sam was out getting some fresh air.  
  
Dean cleared the kitchen table and dug the gifts Frank Black had given him from the very bottom of the Impala’s trunk where they had been hidden since the night he had received them; Jordan’s sketch pad and a plastic case of charcoals and colored pencils. Sam and Jess had been there when Frank had given them to Dean, but only Sam had asked about them afterwards, and he had only asked once. Dean’s expression had forbidden him to ask again. It wasn’t something he was comfortable with and he didn’t want to have to  _discuss_  it. Especially since he knew Sam wouldn’t approve of what he was doing and any conversation on the subject was going to end in yelling and possibly a punch or two. Jess, for all she was new to hunting and almost a stranger to Dean, seemed to have a better understanding of the space he needed on the subject of his ...art.  
  
But now the house was quiet. He opened the sketch pad and ran admiring fingers over the smooth, even grain of the heavy paper. The nicest thing he had drawn on before was cheap white paper swiped from a printer behind the back of an inattentive motel desk clerk. When he had thought about spending the few dollars to buy something more suitable for drawing, it had made his skin crawl, like he was giving in to whatever it was that caused this _compulsion_. But the sketch pad had been a gift, and given just for this purpose. Dean closed his eyes and saw  _this_  shape and  _this_  form, the vision of what was waiting to be given substance on paper as real to him as the chair on which he sat.  
  
He knew when everything had started. One day he was just Dean Winchester, lone hunter extraordinaire; then there came a chintzy motel room outside of Pontiac, Illinois, mirrored ceiling, heart shaped tub; then a raging fever and searing pain in his ears like nothing he had ever experienced before. Dean remembered convulsing on the sheets, feeling like a knife was twisting in his skull. Then, just as the pressure grew too much and he opened his mouth to scream, the ceiling exploded and rained razor shards of silvered glass down onto the bed.  
  
Blackout.  
  
When Dean had woken up, bloody from the hail of glass and exhausted, the pain was gone and he felt woozy but otherwise fine. He bandaged his wounds and fled.  
  
But that night he had drawn the first angel.  
  
Barely aware, he had started sketching on the back of a gas receipt while waiting for his dinner in a roadside dive. The curve of a wing, an edge of robe.... His burger arrived but he didn’t care. Feather details, hands, feet, then a face. He tried to stop, but there was  _something_  about the sketch that held him captive, kept his pen moving even while his mind whirled in a panic. Then it was done and paper eyes bored up into his. Blood seeped through the bandages on his arms, staining the fabric of his shirt in spreading swaths of scarlet. He dropped the pen and shoved away from the table so fast he knocked the bench over from the booth. Dean had tipped his glass of water over the paper, causing the ink to blur, but he could still  _feel_  the eyes and he had torn out of the diner before anyone else could do more than gape in shock.  
  
That night had been bad, and the next, when he had found himself sketching wings into the dust of the Impala’s hood while filling her tank. After a week of struggling to conquer the compulsive  _need_  and desperate research that turned up no stories of anything like what he was experiencing, Dean had woken in the middle of the night to find himself kneeling naked on the floor of his hotel room, a wound on his arm ripped open, bleeding freely, and an angel in crimson watching him with studied neutrality from the wall. His fingers were stained with his own blood.  
  
Dean willingly admitted to not being the sharpest crayon in the box in all things, but he was far from stupid and knew when he was beaten, at least when the only life at stake was his own. Feeling calmer than he had since that first night, he scrubbed the wall clean, bandaged his arm again, and sat down with a pencil to redo the drawing properly. When he didn’t fight it, the clean lines flowed from his hand naturally and he lost track of time in the simple grace of the picture. It was different than the one on the wall, and the others he had strangled before they could truly take form. A stark original that had a  _depth_  commanding in such a simple figure. He studied it until the sun had risen in the Eastern sky. Then Dean finished cleaning up, checked out, and drove until he found a place isolated enough that no one was likely to interrupt him. The lighter his father had given him on his eighteenth birthday was a comforting weight in his hand; he clung to it like an anchor as flames consumed the cheap paper and pain drove him to his knees. There was no center to it, just a storm of misery that assaulted his nerves and left him crying, overwhelmed with loss. He felt like he had when Sam left, when his father had died, when he had woken up three months after scattering his dad’s ashes, smelling like cheap beer and casual sex, and realized that the people he loved best were lost to him forever.  
  
After that he didn’t fight it any more. If he just let it come when he had downtime, it never really reached the compulsive stage. He drew his angels and he burned them afterwards, and if he paid a price in health and sleep --losing pounds, and speed, and focus-- well, that was his decision too. Dean hadn’t even been surprised when the visions had started, glimpses of shining figures, indistinct in their radiance, standing by people soon to die. The figures radiated comfort, but at the same time such an overwhelming feeling of dread that Dean could feel them in the pit of his stomach long before he caught sight of them. He didn’t understand what they wanted from him, didn’t understand  _any_  of it really. He was never able to save the people they showed him, so he gritted his teeth and endured.  
  
Jordan Black’s case had started as just another girl missing under suspicious circumstances. His kind of suspicious. But it wasn’t until after he had seen her room that he had known he  _had_  to find her. The angels that looked down on him from every inch of her wall could have been drawn by his hand. He recognized the mark of his own madness, but until she had disappeared, Jordan’s life, by all accounts, had been a happy one. She had friends, was engaged in life, active on campus; a bright and cheerful personality whose presence was genuinely missed by everyone he interviewed. He had to find her, had to talk to someone who was where he was and still managed to thrive.  
  
And he had found her, or she had found him. Knocking on his motel room door one blustery, dark night when he had all but given up hope of discovering where she had gone. She had asked him to stop following her, but wouldn’t answer his questions. When he categorically refused to leave her alone she had grudgingly allowed him to go with her. There was a strange, compelling charm to Jordan Black, to her quirky smile and her half-answers that left him lying wide awake in the dark, trying to puzzle out the meaning of her cryptic words that he felt was lying  _right there_  just beyond his grasp. She had led him to the cave, and the voices, and the well. He had thought he would die there, in dark and frigid water, but then Sam and Jess had come, and it was Jordan who died.  
  
Or maybe not. There had been that letter mailed to her father after the cave in.... Dean knew Sam was convinced of her death, but Dean had known her better and he wasn’t so sure.  
  
Sam had saved him, and stayed with him, and refused to leave until Dean recognized the truth of Sam’s feelings and his right to make his own choices. Jessica’s rights, too. As bewildering as it still was when he paused to really think about it, in the space of one day he had gone from a dedicated loner who deliberately avoided any kind of social ties, to a man firmly committed not to one person, but two. He hadn’t honestly thought the relationship would last more than a few days, maybe a week since the people involved were all of the stubborn sort, but not longer than that. Dean had tried to resist them, had told himself, and Sam, and Jess, all of the reasons it was a bad, bad idea. But the only thing they had wanted to know was if Dean wanted to try, and he couldn’t look Sam in the eye and say no.  
  
He had loved his brother from the first moment he had seen him, had dedicated almost his entire childhood to protecting him and keeping him safe. And when Sam was sixteen and Dean had realized that he was starting to develop a decidedly non-brotherly sort of appreciation, he had done the hardest thing in his life and told his father. He’d had to. John kept putting them in situations that quickly strained Dean’s self-control almost to the breaking point. It was either do something about it or maybe find himself in a situation where he would be ...tempted, to break the trust his family had in him. John had listened in a strained sort of silence. But he stopped putting his sons up in single bed motel rooms, and two years later, when Sam had stormed off to a west coast school, John had done nothing to stop him. As much as his brother’s absence had pained him, it had also been freeing. The invisible tension between himself and his father had vanished like it never existed, as Dean committed the whole of his attention to the hunt and left the past behind. But life had continued and things had happened, and as rough as the road had been, he liked where he had ended up.  
  
Dean traced one finger over a pale white line on his forearm, the clean slice more than two years healed. There were more than a dozen over his body, souvenirs of the shower of mirror shards. Jess had found them all with her tongue one memorable night not too long ago. Sam had wanted to know what caused them, but was easily distracted by a mumbled “something sharp” and skilled hands in sensitive places. There were some things Dean wasn't ready to share.  
  
Whatever drove him had been quiet lately, but he could still feel it building. In the silence of a house he finally had to himself, Dean picked up a pencil and began to draw.

~~~~~

  
Sam had planned a run that would have taken him far past the piled cars of the junkyard, then through the overgrown field beyond, and down around a pond way back in the woods. It was a route he had run many times as a youth, just getting used to the length on his legs, and many more times as a sulky teenager, trying to take the edge off his frustration and anger at his father’s pointed direction. It should have taken about three hours, but then he stepped in a rabbit hole not even twenty minutes in and that ended that. He was lucky the ankle was only sprained and not broken, but it still took him almost an hour to hobble back to the house.  
  
Sam was surprised to find the yard deserted when he finally reached it. Jessica had tried hard to drag Dean to town with her, but he’d insisted he had work to do on the Impala and so she had taken one of the other junkers Bobby was perpetually working on and gone alone. But the Impala sat exactly as she had been when Sam had left on his ill-fated jog, with no indications Dean had so much as been outside. A stir of unease curled through Sam and the pain of his sprained ankle faded against his sudden need to find his brother. Eight weeks of relative peace hadn’t quite erased twelve months of panic and searching. His vision had given him the chance to save Dean’s life, but the price had been everything he had worked for. Except Jessica, who stuck by his side through what she could only have seen as madness, let him drag her into the hunting world and all across the country, and had even taken the truth of Sam’s feelings for his brother in stride. He still wasn’t entirely sure he understood the decisions she had made that had brought her to this place with him, but she seemed ...happy, and adjusted.  
  
More than adjusted, really, since within days of rescuing Dean from a watery grave in the heart of a frozen forest, the three of them were sharing a bed. But Dean wasn’t quite okay yet, and nothing Frank Black had said about the  _talents_  his brother had developed eased any of Sam’s fears. Dean refused categorically to discuss it and Jess had quietly asked Sam to drop it, to wait until he came to them. But everyone else who had talents like Dean’s had died, and Sam couldn’t help but feel a certain ominous sense of hovering dread that the worst was still to come. He hadn’t had any more visions, and the tangled wash of images and sensations Jordan Black had pressed on him in the cave were still a mystery to him, but he couldn’t shake the feeling that their current bit of peace was just the eye of the storm. And now Dean wasn’t where he was supposed to be and Sam had to take a moment to force back the fear.  
  
Sam crept into the house, taking the time to be as silent as possible despite the deliberately unoiled door hinges and the warped boards that were Bobby’s most basic form of security. He found his brother in the kitchen, seemingly unaware of Sam’s early return. Dean was hunched over the table, focused on something there to the exclusion of all distraction. The faint scratch of pencil on paper gave Sam all the information he needed to realize what was happening, but knowing that Dean was afflicted with Jordan’s gift and seeing him actually consumed with it were two different things.  
  
Sam stood silently by Dean’s shoulder, weight heavily on one foot, until it became obvious his brother wasn’t going to acknowledge him. After a couple of minutes he wondered uneasily if Dean  _could_. The figure taking shape on the paper was simple and compelling, strong lines and careful balance, forming seemingly without effort under his brother’s callused hands. But Dean was at least  _thinking_ about the picture; Sam could see the minute pauses for consideration, the hesitation before a line shifted subtly. Dean wasn’t being controlled by some outside force, or at least not completely. It was still creepy as hell, but it surprised Sam how much that small observation comforted him.  
  
“Dean.”  
  
Dean finished the line he was drawing and then laid the pencil down. He laced his fingers together to stretch his arms out and raised an eyebrow at his brother. “Sam.”  
  
There was tightness to the corner of his eyes that betrayed his real feelings. Sam hadn’t been meant to see this.  
  
Which annoyed Sam to no end.  
  
“How long have you been working on this?”  
  
“Not too long. You’re back awfully soon, run out of ground?”  
  
Sam grimaced and gingerly shifted his weight. “Stepped in a hole. Took me an hour to walk back.”  
  
Dean automatically glanced down to where Sam had tugged the leg of his sweatpants up to show his foot. Even with his sneakers and socks still on, Sam’s right ankle was obviously in bad shape. Dean swore, shoved his brother down into a chair and went to fix an ice pack.  
  
“Get your shoes off; throw the bad one up on the other chair.”  
  
Sam did as directed, letting Dean settle the ice around his ankle, which was starting to turn some alarming colors.  
  
“Can you get me some Tylenol or something?”  
  
“Any idea where Bobby keeps it?” Dean asked, opening cabinet doors but finding nothing.  
  
“I think I saw some in the bathroom closet with the other first aid supplies.”  
  
Dean nodded and slipped out of the room. Sam barely waited for him to clear the doorway before he snatched up the picture. He was still looking at it when Dean came back. Dean set the bottle of generic Tylenol on the table and brought a glass of water. He didn’t say anything about Sam’s examination of the drawing.  
  
“You don’t ...have to hide this.” Sam finally said, laying it back down.  
  
Dean crossed his arms tightly over his chest and shrugged.  
  
Sam tried again. “You aren’t the only one who’s different, Dean.”  
  
“Thanks, Sam,” Dean said dryly. He slid back into his seat and picked the pencil up again.  
  
“I just mean  _this_ ,” Sam pointed to the page, “doesn’t have to be something you try to keep secret from me. Or Jess. It’s just a picture.”  
  
“It isn’t, or we wouldn’t be having this conversation in the first place. It’s a freaky-ass drawing of a freaky-ass angel that I’m _compelled_  to draw. And sometimes I see them, and sometimes people die. There isn’t anything  _just_  about it.”  
  
“How often do you draw them?” Sam hastily swallowed a couple of tablets and downed half the glass of water, taking advantage of Dean’s apparent willingness to talk. “From Jordan’s room, and what you and Frank said, I thought you would be more prolific than this. I thought-”  
  
“You thought I was going to be like Jordan and leaving a trail of creepy little fluttery pictures behind me?”  
  
“No.” Sam glared. “Look, I just, I  _worry_  about you. You have this  _thing_  we know almost nothing about, it started out of the blue, and everyone else who had it is dead! I think I’m entitled to want to know more about it.”  
  
“Because we’re having sex?”  
  
Sam blinked, nonplussed. “ _What_?” he hissed. “No! That has nothing to do with this. I’m your  _brother_. I think I’ve got enough of a right to be concerned about something that might  _kill_  you without dragging anything else into it!”  
  
“Okay.” Dean shrugged. “It’s just that we were also brothers for a whole ten years you didn’t seem to give much of a damn. Just thought I’d check.”  
  
Knowing that he was being deliberately provoked wasn’t doing much to help Sam keep his cool, and the statement was so outrageous that he could only stare at Dean for a moment as the pencil flew over the paper. Dean never looked up. Realizing that there was absolutely nowhere for the conversation to go that wouldn’t just make things worse, Sam hauled himself to his feet and stormed out of the room as best he could.  
  
“Stay off that foot!” Dean called after him.  
  
As much as the childish part of him was tempted to do something stupid just because Dean had said otherwise, Sam limped all the way up the stairs and sprawled onto the bed he shared with Jess, throwing his swollen ankle up onto a pile of folded blankets and stewing in his own irritation. Leaving the ice pack downstairs was just icing on the cake; it would make the swelling worse and the healing slower if he didn’t ice his foot, but he couldn’t bring himself to ask Dean to bring it to him and going to get it himself seemed like admitting some kind of defeat. Sam settled for grabbing one of Jessica’s magazines off the bedside table and buried himself in a quiz trying to determine “what kind of girl” he was.  
  
He gave up and flipped the magazine aside after it informed him that he was the most boring girl alive, and settled his hands across his stomach, still irritated but more thoughtful. The argument made no sense, not even from a ‘burning off steam’ perspective. Dean had picked the fight on purpose, and Sam just couldn’t see why. It hadn’t been to hide the drawing. Dean hadn’t been exactly welcoming, but he had left it out openly and even worked on it with Sam watching. He hadn’t seemed self-conscious or upset about Sam catching him, so then why drive Sam off?  
  
Sam mulled it over for a while. His ankle was still painful but had subsided to more of a dull ache than insistent throbbing and he felt that if he stayed very still he could almost fall asleep....  
  
The bang of the screen door below made his eyes fly open. He hadn’t heard a car in the yard so it was Dean going out instead of Jess coming in. He was drifting off again when an image floated into his mind. Jordan Black’s bedroom, purple drapes and cheap furnishings, and every inch of the walls covered with her drawings looking down in impassive judgment. Dean holding his father’s journal, the cheap typing paper folded in half hanging from his fingers.  
  
 _I burn them._  
  
Like peeling off your own skin.  
  
Sam bolted upright and slid out of the bed, almost falling when his ankle refused to support him. He grabbed hold of the doorframe and gritted his teeth through the white wash of pain, and when it receded, stumbled down the narrow stairs and through the house. The kitchen was empty, the drawing pad now open to a fresh page with no sign of the picture or Dean. Sam limped as fast as he could out into the yard, but there was no one there, either. He stood in frustration, in no way up to searching the entire compound, when an odd muffled sound caught his ear. Sam made his way cautiously around a stack of scrap metal and found Dean kneeling in the dusty cold. This close, Sam could smell the ashes of the burning and see the glint of silver clenched in his brother’s hand.  
  
“You asshole!”  
  
Dean spun and stared wide eyed at Sam which made Sam want to swear even more. Dean had been crying. He’d chased Sam off so he could do this alone and it was such a Dean thing that Sam was torn between wanting to hug him and wanting to hit him.  
  
“You stupid, fucking, asshole.”  
  
Dean rubbed at his eyes with the sleeve of his shirt and stood up, dirt clinging to the knees of his jeans. There wasn’t anything in his expression now that wasn’t tired and somewhat annoyed, but even the years of space between them hadn’t robbed Sam of his ability to read his brother like a book, and there was something  _off_  in his eyes. Vulnerable.  
  
Sam’s ankle threatened to spill him across the ground again, but Dean had a shoulder under his arm and was pulling him towards the house before Sam could even get himself together enough to protest.  
  
“If you didn’t want to work out with me and Jess, you only had to say no. Maiming yourself is a little extreme,” Dean grumbled as he eased Sam to the couch minutes later, dragging over a tattered chair to prop Sam’s foot up in again. He’d swiped the ice pack from the table as they passed and used a dishtowel to secure it back over the swelling. Sam winced, but still managed to grab Dean by a belt loop when he looked like he was thinking of escape. He tugged until Dean reluctantly sank onto the couch beside him.  
  
“We’ve been through too much for this shit, Dean.”  
  
Dean did him the grace of not pretending to misunderstand. “They’re my drawings and I can do with them what I damn well please.”  
  
“Okay.”  
  
“Okay?” Dean frowned. “That’s it?”  
  
Sam shrugged. “You’re right, they’re your drawings.”  
  
“Okay then. Um, I guess that’s settled.”  
  
“I know why you don’t want to keep them around,” Sam continued.  
  
“Or not,” Dean growled.  
  
“Shut-up and listen to me. I’m not going to stop you from burning them, and Jess won’t either. But I don’t want you to hide it from us! It hurts you and it sucks, and if you have to do it, then at least let us help.”  
  
“You want to dry my eyes and hold my hand while I burn some paper?” The sarcasm was sharp enough to cut, but Sam grit his teeth and refused to rise to the bait again.  
  
“If you don’t like that, then how about this: you are practically a vegetable when you’re doing the drawings, and seem pretty _preoccupied_  when you destroy them. We’re supposed to be a team and take care of each other now, remember that? So get off your high horse and ask for some fucking help. There’s enough things out there that want to kill you without you making yourself a sitting duck! I’m not angry about you burning the stupid pictures, Dean; I’m pissed about you being such a dumbass about it!”  
  
The rumble and choke of an engine in desperate need of help from out in the yard cut off Dean’s rejoinder.  
  
Sam watched him with a look of dark satisfaction. “Jess. Can’t wait to hear what she has to say about this.”  
  
“Oh, I don’t think she’s going to have anything to say to  _me_.” Dean nodded towards Sam’s ankle.  
  
It was a moot point though, because when the door opened it wasn’t Jess carrying groceries but Bobby carrying his duffle bag. He looked tired but grimly satisfied. Dean hopped up to take the bag and it was a sign of how exhausted Bobby was that he let him.  
  
“Everything go okay?” Sam asked, as Bobby sank into a chair with a relieved groan.  
  
“Well as could be expected. Gremlins are gone, what needed burying is buried. Not much else to say about it.”  
  
Dean tossed the filthy duffle bag onto the linoleum of the kitchen and wiped his hands off on his jeans with an expression of distaste. Under Bobby’s sharp gaze, Sam squirmed as he recalled the last conversation they had, but then Bobby looked around the room and his eyes widened.  
  
“What in holy hell have you people done to my house?!”

~~~~~

  
Bobby had still been in a state of shock when[](http://statcounter.com/) Jess arrived a few minutes later, growling about the car she had borrowed and people who didn’t answer their phones. Sam looked somewhat guilty about that, having left his on the porch when he went for his run and completely forgotten to pick it back up in all the subsequent excitement. Dean had turned his off in his bid for some peace and privacy, and didn’t seem the least bit apologetic, though he did tell Jess she was a curse to automobiles and forbid her from going within ten feet of his baby without an escort. Jess retaliated by making garden burgers for dinner, though she swore it was for health and not a personal attack on Dean. Bobby just kept looking around and shaking his head.  
  
It was nice to have everyone home.  
  
Jessica was passing through the kitchen the next evening just in time to hear Bobby chuckle to Sam about the time he’d been forced to drink some witch’s brew and hallucinated he was a dragon for three days. He was starting to say something about virgins, but cut himself off abruptly when he caught sight of her.  
  
“You have visions too?” she asked, digging around in the fridge for yogurt. She found some and leaned against the cabinet while she opened it up. “First Sam, then Dean, and now you. I’m starting to feel excluded from the club.”  
  
“You can have my membership!” Dean called through the screen door.  
  
“What are you doing out there? It’s about to snow!”  
  
Sam pushed a chair out for her. “The calk around that window is rotting out. He’s redoing it before the storm hits.”  
  
“Hmmm. Wish I had known, we could have done that this past week.”  
  
“You all did quite enough,” Bobby grumbled.  
  
“You’re welcome.” Jess said tartly, grabbing an apple out of a bowl on the counter and heading back to the study where she was working.  
  
Bobby just shook his head and unfolded his newspaper, but it wasn’t until Dean took a look at the paper later that anyone noticed the article. It was a tiny blurb, only even mentioned because the museum also had a display on loan from a local institution, but it caught Dean’s attention immediately.  
  
“Mason Todd. Why do I know that name?” he wondered aloud, drumming the fingers of one hand on the table in thought.  
  
“I have no idea,” Jess answered absently from where she was stirring something that smelled questionable on the stove. “Someone you dated?”  
  
“Hey, Sam!” Dean yelled down the hall, ignoring her. “Who’s Mason Todd?”  
  
Sam didn’t answer but Bobby did, walking into the room with a frown. “Todd was an occult collector back in the seventies. Donated most of his crap to a museum before he kicked it in ...seventy-six? Eight maybe? Don’t know much more about him, haven’t heard his name come up in years. Why?”  
  
Dean folded the paper back so the article featured prominently on top and slid it across the table. “Someone robbed the museum. I don’t suppose his collection was for tourists?” Dean asked without much hope.  
  
Bobby grabbed the paper and skimmed through the text. “Awww,  _crap_.”

~~~~~

  
“This is in  _South Carolina_ ,” Sam insisted in a low whisper later that night. Bobby had spent most of the afternoon on the phone before finally storming off to bed in disgust, leaving the three of them to discuss the matter alone. “How is this our problem?!”  
  
“What do you mean, ‘how is this our problem’?” Dean hissed back. “I’ve never heard you refuse to do a hunt because it was a few states away before!”  
  
“This isn’t a _hunt_ , Dean! It’s a few pieces of jewelry that someone stole from a museum. Probably because ‘museum’ is apparently a generous term for this place and they pretty much only had to throw a brick through a window and smash the case. It was easy, and the stuff is long gone into a pawn shop somewhere.”  
  
“That makes it even worse, Sam! The stuff is cursed. Who knows what could happen with it out in the world? We need to go and find it.”  
  
“Do we even know what kind of curse this is?” Jess demanded. “I’m all about holding Dean’s cape and cheering him on while he assaults the forces of evil, but one of the reasons we’re still here is because  _certain people_ ,” she eyed Dean pointedly, “ran themselves into the ground and needed some down time. If it’s a curse that makes people bark like dogs, then sure, let’s pack a cooler, pull out the maps and hit the road. But if it’s a curse that turns people into ...I don’t know,  _werewolves_ , then maybe we should take a pass and let someone in a little better shape tackle the eight foot tall, slavering monsters.”  
  
“Werewolves aren’t eight feet tall,” Dean snapped. “They grow a little fur, a couple of claws, and eat people’s hearts. And it’s not even like that’s every night!”  
  
“Way to miss the point, Dean.”  
  
“I got your stupid point! But we’ve been here for  _more than two months now_. I like Bobby just as much as the next guy, but c’mon! I’m fine! I sleep, I eat, I roll around in the dirt with hot chicks. The bruises are gone and I haven’t had so much as a sniffle. Let’s get out of here before the snow is waist deep again.”  
  
They both looked at Sam for an opinion.  
  
Sam had his arms crossed tightly. “ _Do_  we know what the curse does?”  
  
Dean shrugged. “Nope. Todd insisted they were cursed, but apparently was a little lacking on the specifics. One of the reasons no one was terribly upset about the jewelry ending up in a case for any random person to stare at. Bobby said people pretty much assumed that if it was something awful they would have heard about it, and there was too much real shit going down to be worried about a few baubles in a display case that no one knew anything about. Todd died a few weeks after the donation before anyone could question him, and people just kind of ...let it go.”  
  
“So, this really may not be anything,” Sam concluded.  
  
“It’s still cursed jewelry someone could accidently end up with,” Jess said reluctantly.  
  
Sensing weakness, Dean was quick to speak up again. “Bobby said one of Todd’s pieces was a magical cabinet he swore up and down belonged to Houdini. You know, one of those things people climb into and then disappear, but really it has a hidden compartment and when you open it again they climb out? No one cared much about that either until some douchebag bought it for his amateur magic show and started using it. Realized real fast that when people inside vanished they never showed back up.”  
  
“So some hunter took it from him and destroyed it?” Jess asked.  
  
“Sure,” Dean shrugged. “But not until the bright light found someone who had a need to make a lot of bodies disappear to pay him top dollar for access.”  
  
“I’m not even sure I want to know...” Jessica sighed.  
  
“Let’s just say cement shoes don’t go with  _every_ outfit.”  
  
“Sam can’t even walk!” Jessica insisted.  
  
“So what? He can hobble.” Dean shrugged. “And he can definitely ride in the car. Think of it this way, he needs to sit in back so he can prop his foot up, which means you get the front the entire time.”  
  
“Hmmmm.”  
  
“That can’t  _seriously_  be part of your consideration!” Sam said incredulously to her.  
  
Jessica gave him a look of total innocence. “Of course not. I was only worried about your comfort. I know how you always whine about not having enough room for your legs, and with your ankle messed up ...but I think Dean’s right. We’ve been cooped up long enough and doing a little snooping around shouldn’t be a problem. It’s not like we’ll be chasing ten foot tall monsters,” she turned a menacing glare on Dean, “ _right_?”  
  
“Exactly,” Dean assured her. They both beamed smiles at Sam, who sighed and slumped further down into the couch cushions, recognizing defeat when he saw it.  
  
  
 **Chapter Three**  
  
“So what exactly are you guys going to do?” Bobby asked over breakfast.  
  
“Roadtrip,” Jessica answered, sliding a sheaf of paper carefully into a manila envelope for mailing. “I’m riding shotgun, we’re not staying any place that rents by the hour, and we’re going to drug Sam into a coma before we get out of the driveway so we can turn the music up to ten and rock out.”  
  
“Hey!” Sam objected.  
  
“Sorry, I meant to say we’re going to make sure you have enough medication in your system that your ankle doesn’t bother you too much on the ride,” Jess amended helpfully. “We only have your best interests at heart,” she assured him. Sam looked far from convinced.  
  
“You’re just going to head on out to Swainsboro, then... stand on street corners demanding to know if anyone saw who took a brick to the museum window and stole a handful of cursed jewelry?” Bobby raised an eyebrow.  
  
“Nope,” Dean announced firmly, pocketing his cell phone as he entered the room. He stole a piece of toast off Sam’s plate and grabbed a chair. “We don’t have to bother with any of that crap, because I know a guy who knows a guy who knows who took the stuff.”  
  
Three sets of eyes blinked at him.  
  
Sam finally bit. “How do you know a guy who knows a guy who knows anything about some two room tourist trap in Podunk South Carolina?”  
  
“You know there actually  _is_  a Podunk in Connecticut?”  
  
“ _Dean._ ”  
  
Dean rolled his eyes. “It’s not a big deal, Sam. I just finally remembered why I knew the name Mason Todd. Dad took me on a hunt out there when I was about fifteen. I think you were staying with Jim finishing up... sixth grade?”  
  
“Why weren’t you in school?” Jess asked, always interested in picking up stories about Sam’s childhood. Dean’s too, but that was a more recent obsession.  
  
“It was no secret I had no plans to go to college," Dean shrugged, "and I’d already been a big enough pain in the ass that no one in their right mind was going to try to hold me back at that school over attendance bullshit. I was passing all my classes. Sam was staying with a friend... no real reason  _not_  to go.”  
  
“I have no trouble believing you were a pain in someone’s ass,” Jess said dryly. “But what did you do to the administration that they were so ready to get rid of you?”  
  
“Fighting,” Dean said shortly.  
  
Jessica’s eyes narrowed, sensing more to the story. “That’s it?”  
  
“He was defending me, I had some problems with the other kids” Sam said quietly, meeting Dean’s eyes over the table. “They didn’t want to expel him because Dad, well, was Dad. It only took a visit or two to put the fear of John Winchester into them and he also told them it was the last year they would have to worry about a Winchester in their school system. All they had to do was pass Dean and keep their mouths shut and no one would ever mention it again.”  
  
“Kids can be mean.” Jess nodded. “What was he defending you from?”  
  
“He told one of his little friends her dad’s plane was going to crash,” Dean said dryly. “In front of some other kids. And when it  _did_ crash... let’s just say that kids aren’t really ready to be any more understanding about that sort of thing than adults are. Dad was gone on a hunt; Sam came home with two black eyes and a sprained wrist. He’d scared the crap out of his homeroom teacher who had also overheard his little  _indiscretion_ , so she wasn’t doing squat. Someone had to.” He shrugged. “I let the worst offenders know it had better not happen again, then made Sam stay home just in case until Dad came back.”  
  
“It’s not like I  _meant_  to say anything,” Sam muttered irritably. “I was just talking to her and it was _there._  I kind of blurted it out.”  
  
“That’s  _horrible_ ,” Jess said, resting her hand on his arm.  
  
“Dad took care of it,” Dean continued. “He pulled Sam out and sent him to Pastor Jim’s, and he set the yokels in charge straight with me. I pretty much only showed up for tests after that. We were on the other side of the country by the time the next school year started.”  
  
“Did that happen a lot?” Jess asked Sam, having had more than enough exposure to his visions to know that he had no control over the where and when they would strike.  
  
He shook his head. “No, I don’t remember it ever happening in school other than that. And that was a weird thing. What I see...” he paused, giving Bobby an awkward sidelong look, but Bobby continued cutting his eggs with deliberate attention, so Sam went on, “is usually related to me more directly, even when it’s not obvious at first, my visions always end up having  _something_  to do with me. This didn’t. I had a few in that general time period that never really seemed to connect up. Just,” Sam shrugged, “one of those things.”  
  
“Growing pains,” Dean said seriously. Sam kicked him under the table with a glare.  
  
“As exciting as this little insight into ‘what-the-hell-was-your-father-thinking’ has been, how does this lead to a mysterious contact in Swainsboro?” Bobby asked.  
  
“My Dad did the best he could,” Dean grumbled.  
  
Bobby snorted. “Your Daddy put his psychic son into  _public school_ with no idea of when his visions would strike or what other things might be going on with him. John was a fine man and one of the best damn hunters who ever claimed the title, but there was a reason I ran him off with a shotgun more than once.”  
  
“I think we’re straying again,” Jess cut in before Dean could snap back. “Dean, contact?”  
  
“Right,” Dean refocused. “So on this trip we met up with another hunter dad knew in the area, Eli Carter, and he liked to tell stories. He had lost a leg in a car accident so he didn’t actually go out after things anymore, and I kept getting left at his place because Dad needed to do some scouting before he brought me out because hollowwatchers go kind of into a frenzy over kids and he wasn’t ready to trap it yet-”  
  
Dean missed Jess’s wide-eyed stare at his totally casual mention of being used as bait for a monster, but Sam didn’t and he gave her a rueful eye roll.  
  
“-so I pretty much got chapter and verse on all the local stories and stuff. Which is how I recognized that name. I called Carter and he was more than happy to summarize everything for me again. Todd had a real reputation as a weirdo, even for people in our line of work, but he sounded mostly harmless. And just like Bobby said, he donated a bunch of crap to the museum before he died that irritated people, but not enough to do anything about it. Eli says he knows the guy who’s in charge of the collection there and he thinks the guy knows who did it, but Eli is involved in trying to help round up some witches at the moment and doesn’t really put much of a priority on Mason Todd’s missing jewelry.”  
  
Bobby raised an eyebrow. “If the locals aren’t interested, you guys still set on driving all the way out there?”  
  
“I’m not going to be any help,” Sam interjected. “So if you guys are just going to go question some people maybe I should stay here and keep working on my stuff. I could do some research, be useful that way.”  
  
Dean gave him a level look, then turned casually to Jess. “Ever been to Atlantic City?”  
  
“Nope.” She grinned and sealed the envelope. “You want to take me?”  
  
“Some of the world’s finest pool hustling is right outside the city limits. You wear something skin tight, low cut, and lean at just the right angle over the tables and we might not have to worry about money for the rest of the year.”  
  
“Sounds interesting. Like this?”  
  
Jess, recently out of bed and still wearing her usual sleep clothes of a tank top and Sam’s boxers, leaned on the kitchen table in a pose that gave Sam an excellent view of her bare chest down the front of her shirt.  
  
Dean put a hand on her waist where her top had slid up a bit. “Maybe arch a little more. You need to make sure you get everyone’s attention so they are more interested in what you are doing with your, ah,  _attributes_ , and less interested in what I’m doing on the table.” Bobby’s gaze was boring into the side of Sam’s head but Sam refused to meet his eyes.  
  
Dean’s hand slid to her hip as he encouraged Jess to shift her weight, then stepped back to study her posture thoughtfully.  
  
“Maybe I should wiggle a little too?” she suggested.  
  
Sam gritted his teeth.  
  
“All right, that’s more than enough of that.” Bobby announced firmly. “Get dressed, get out, and go fleece people somewhere I don’t have to eat. And don’t think you aren’t going, too,” he added when Sam showed no sign of moving. “If for no other reason than to bail them out when they get picked up by the cops.”

~~~~~

  
Sam avoided any possibility of being unwittingly drugged by the simple expedience of swallowing some Tylenol before they left, and asking Jess and Dean to leave well enough alone. It wasn’t that he was certain they were serious about slipping him something; it was just that he was positive they wouldn’t do anything once he directly asked them not too. It spared him the inconvenience of having to refuse to eat or drink anything they handed him during the long drive to South Carolina. Besides, his ankle didn’t hurt  _that_ bad.  
  
Well, it actually  _did_  hurt that bad, but after a few hours of squirming and shifting in the backseat he managed to find a surprisingly comfortable position that let him keep his foot propped up on the bench and his head comfortably settled on a pillow. After that, his semi-consciousness was entirely voluntary and Sam was deeply sorry when it was time to pile out into a motel room. The place only had a double room free and it took only a glance to know there was no way they were all sharing one bed. Dean took the bed closest to the door by himself, claiming that he had done all the driving and deserved the most sprawling room, conveniently ignoring that Sam actually couldn’t drive and he had forbidden Jessica, too.  
  
Between the incredibly thin layer of padding between the springs and his skin, the persistent drip of the sink faucet, and the party spilling out onto the balcony of the floor above, Sam didn’t think the place had anything to recommend it over the Impala, and the Impala was free. For her part, Jess gave the mattress a good ten minutes of consideration after they turned the lights out, then shamelessly stole the comforter from the bed she was sharing with Sam, leaving him with just the sheet, and moved onto the narrow strip of floor between the beds.  
  
“If we strip the mattress, we can both sleep down there,” he offered into the darkness a few minutes later, covered in goosebumps from cold and not even a little close to sleep.  
  
“You need to rest your foot. I’m sure the mattress is better for that. Besides, there isn’t enough room down here,” she replied sleepily. Sam gave a few minutes of thoughtful consideration to the idea that she might be actually evil and he just hadn’t noticed in the years they lived together at Stanford. Then it occurred to him that there was another friendly source of warmth in the room, and another mattress to try. He carefully shifted to the other bed, trying not to step too hard on anything warm and wiggly on the floor. Jessica grumbled but didn’t carry through on her threat to bite him and he declared the operation a success.  
  
Mostly.  
  
When he lay down he found the new mattress to be, if anything, even more stiff and spring-filled than the last, but at least it was warm. And even warmer when Dean rolled over and mumbled something mostly incoherent about ingratitude and harpies before sliding an arm around Sam’s waist and burying his face in his shoulder. Sam wasn’t much sleepier, but he was much happier, and eventually drifted off.

~~~~~

  
Their hotel room on the outskirts of Swainsboro, after another uneventful day of travel, was much more to everyone’s taste. It was still cheap, and the clerk had handed over a roll of toilet paper with the attitude that they should be grateful for that much, but it had a king size bed and looked to have been cleaned fairly recently.  
  
Jessica flopped down on the mattress, gave Dean a thumbs up, then rolled back to her feet just in time to grab a bag from Sam’s hand where he stood in the doorway.  
  
“I hate this,” Sam grumbled, lowering himself into an upholstered chair.  
  
“The chair?” Dean asked, flipping intently through their dad’s journal.  
  
Jessica rolled her eyes. “Yeah, Dean. He’s taken a sudden dislike to ...what is that color, exactly, Sam? Purple?”  
  
Sam looked down at the armrest. “Maybe.”  
  
“All right, guys,” Dean fished in a pocket for his keys, “you get settled in. I’m going to visit an old family friend.”  
  
“Wait one second, why can’t we all go?” Jess demanded.  
  
“Because I’m going to meet up with Eli, and then we’re going to go talk to his buddy who might know who’s behind this. It’s the kind of conversation that goes better with fewer people, so you stay here with gimpy and make sure he doesn’t... I don’t know, drown in the bathroom or swallow his tongue-”  
  
“I stepped in a hole, Dean! It was covered in grass!” Sam snapped, indignant.  
  
“Whatever. I’ll be back later. Want me to bring dinner?”  
  
“I guess,” Jess sighed.  
  
When the door closed behind him, Jessica looked around the motel room until her gaze landed back on Sam. “This place sucks. We can’t even walk anywhere.”  
  
Sam shrugged. “Welcome to my childhood. And you can go if you want; I can watch TV or something.”  
  
“I promised Dean I wouldn’t let you paper cut yourself to death,” she said firmly, sitting on the edge of the bed next to his chair. “What did you  _do_  for all that time?”  
  
“Mostly schoolwork, or annoyed Dean,” Sam said dryly.  
  
“Well,” she mused thoughtfully, “Dean’s off having a personal adventure, and we don’t have schoolwork anymore. Think we can find something else interesting to do with the time?” Jess kicked one long leg up across Sam’s lap and gave him an encouraging grin.  
  
“Yeah,” Sam answered with his own smile. “I don’t think we’re going to have any problem at all.”

~~~~~

  
“When you said ‘dinner’, I didn’t think you meant ‘cold pizza’,” Jess grumbled, a few hours later.  
  
Dean rolled his eyes and reached for another slice. “And when I said ‘keep an eye on Sam’, I didn’t mean, ‘and suck hickies all over his neck’. I guess we just have communication problems.”  
  
Jessica’s eyes narrowed. “It’s one hicky, Dean. And it’s barely a red spot. Besides which, I don’t think anyone has nominated you the sex police.”  
  
Sam, eating his own pizza, wisely stayed out of the conversation.  
  
“I left you the other side,” she added thoughtfully after a minute. Dean grinned at her.  
  
“Sorry the food’s cold. There’s not a pizza joint for twenty miles. We are in the middle of freaking nowhere.”  
  
“There’s a burger place we passed on the way in,” Sam said, wiping his fingers on a napkin. “You just desperately had to have pizza tonight? And how did the meeting go?”  
  
“I like pizza and we’ll find out tomorrow.” Dean shrugged. “Anything good on the tube?”  
  
  
 **Chapter Four**  
  
“So this is Brett Miller’s house.” Jessica didn’t sound impressed.  
  
Looking at the heaps of junk in the front yard, the sagging roof line, and the cars up on blocks in waist high grass, Sam had to agree with her sentiment. Heavy looking drapes in the front windows obscured any view of the street, and the neighboring houses were either obviously abandoned or had views obstructed by bushes.  
  
“Supposedly,” Dean squinted at the front glass, looking for a security sticker. “Just think, Sam. If you guys had stayed in Stanford and gotten your nine-to-five, in a few short years this could have been your dream home!”  
  
Jess slid an arm through one of Sam’s. “We were aiming a little higher, Dean.”  
  
Dean motioned towards the house. “You think this guy was aiming for this?”  
  
“Do we know anything else about what happened? How does Eli know it even was this Miller person?” Sam asked.  
  
“Not Eli, Eli’s buddy. Miller needed money, he was on shift when it happened, and best of all -- the dumbass told his girlfriend he did it. On the phone, in the break room, at work. Which is where Eli’s trusty informant overheard the whole thing.”  
  
Sam frowned. “Why didn’t the informant just turn Miller in?”  
  
Dean shrugged. “He didn’t care? It’s not the kind of place that inspires a lot of loyalty. Crappy hours, crappy pay, lousy bosses. Works out for us, if the stuff is cursed the cops don’t need to have it any more than the museum does.”  
  
“I suppose that makes sense,” Jess agreed. “What’s our plan? Knock on the door and ask him politely to turn it over?”  
  
“Knock on the door and ask not so politely. Eli had an inventory of the missing stuff, hopefully this jackass is still sitting on it and we won’t have to chase it all over the countryside.” Dean opened the trunk and pulled out the pizza box from the night before. “Let’s go.”  
  
Jess raised an eyebrow at Sam, who shrugged. They followed Dean up the broken concrete flagstones.  
  
Dean waved them back against the house so they couldn’t be seen through the peephole, then pressed the doorbell and held the box out in front on himself. After a moment, the door cracked open and one dark eye peered warily out from behind the security chain.  
  
“Pizza,” Dean said brightly.  
  
“I didn’t order one,” the man said, confused.  
  
Dean’s face fell. “Are you sure? This was the address on the ticket, someone named Miller called it in?”  
  
“I’m Brett Miller, but I think I’d remember if I ordered a damn pizza! I didn’t think you people even delivered out here.”  
  
Dean shifted in mock impatience. “Well, look, man. I’ve got a busy schedule and nothing to do with this pie. Since I’m here, you want it anyways? Half price?”  
  
Miller eyed the box. “How much is half?”  
  
“Five bucks, just hurry up. It’s getting cold.”  
  
Miller nodded and undid the security chain. Dean threw his weight against the door and staggered Miller back. By the time Sam and Jess were in the doorway, Dean already had Brett’s hands tied and had slapped a stretch of tape over his mouth.  
  
“Phew. That was fun.” Dean looked around the room. “Let’s drag him to a chair and get this over with.”  
  
Fifteen minutes later Brett was still tied to a chair, but the tape was gone and he looked more sullen than terrified. He’d admitted he had taken the stuff, but then told three different stories on what he had done with it afterwards. In disgust, they had finally just decided to toss the entire place.  
  
“And I thought Bobby’s house was filthy,” Jess coughed, waving dust away from her face after having moved a pile of newspapers off a chair to clear Sam a seat.  
  
“Did you touch any of the stuff you stole? Without gloves?” Sam demanded, leaning against the counter across from their prisoner.  
  
“You think I wanted my prints on stolen goods?” Brett scoffed.  
  
“That’s not an answer,” Sam growled.  
  
Dean shrugged. “If he did, he’ll pay for it.”  
  
“How? We still don’t know what the curse does!” Sam snapped.  
  
“Eli said no one’s sure. But if it’s a curse, it’s not going to be anything good. Just desserts and all.”  
  
“Curse?” Miller asked, eyes wide. “What curse? What the hell are you people talking about?”  
  
“Shut-up!” The order came from three different corners of the room.   
  
“So... we want to divide and conquer?" Jessica asked. "Gimpy stays here with our host?”  
  
Sam and Dean traded looks, Sam with a frown, Dean with a raised eyebrow. “I guess,” Sam finally said reluctantly.  
  
Jess, correctly interpreting the reason for his unhappiness, glared at him. “It’s tossing a house, not trench warfare. I think I can look for stolen goods without someone holding my hands. It will take the rest of the night doing it room by room together, and you aren’t exactly fast on your feet.”  
  
Sam’s expression tightened, but he didn’t say anything else. Dean pulled a pair of latex gloves out of his pocket and tossed them to Jess. “Start at the top, I’ll take the bottom.”

~~~~~

  
Jessica spent the first half hour of her search muttering unflattering things about Sam’s faith in her competency and who-had-saved-who from murderous ghosts, and the next half hour sneezing too hard to worry about anything but her own sinuses. Judging from the rooms and their contents, Miller must have inherited the house from relatives and never bothered packing their things out. After an initial attempt to keep things the way she found them, which was mostly all over the floor, Jess had given up and started just dumping drawers out. From the state of things, there was every chance Miller wouldn’t even notice anyways.  
  
When she found jewelry, or anything even close to it, she brought it downstairs and added it to the collection on the table. Between the two of them, she and Dean were amassing a sizeable little horde.  
  
“If you had all of this crap lying around, why did you steal the stuff from the museum? It’s only even valuable because it’s a ‘typical example of work from the period’, whatever the hell that means, and the period was the nineteen thirties, so ...not exactly bringing in the big bucks.” Dean reached out and picked a hideous brooch out of the pile that looked like a penguin in a peach tree, but for some unknown reason the peaches were made of diamond. “This is probably worth more than anything you snatched, and it was stuck to the counter with a bar of half-melted soap!”  
  
Brett struggled against the rope binding him to the chair, a look of fury on his face. “That belonged to my Aunt Gretchen! You put that down right now and stop touching her stuff!”  
  
Dean rolled his eyes, Sam rubbed his. “It doesn’t matter why. Look, Mr. Miller, this would all be over with if you would just tell us where you put the stuff.”  
  
“I sold it,” Brett snapped.  
  
“No, he didn’t,” Jess said, walking down the stairs into the kitchen. She was carrying a moth-eaten hat and inside sparkled the cheap stones of a heap of missing jewelry. “I found this in a suitcase under a bed in one of the upstairs bedrooms.  
  
“Have I ever told you that you’re my favorite?” Dean asked with a grin.  
  
“You’re favorite toe-nail polisher?” she asked dryly.  
  
“My favorite everything,” Dean assured her, ignoring Sam’s rolled eyes. Tied to the chair, Brett Miller said nothing, just glared balefully at the linoleum floor. Sam pulled on his own pair of gloves and Dean pulled an inventory of the missing items from his back pocket. They both watched as Jess spilled the glittering collection onto the tabletop.  
  
It only took about ten minutes to pick through and sort everything out. When they were done, Dean swore and scowled at Miller. “We’re missing about a third. Where the hell is it?”  
  
“I told you,” Miller sneered, “I sold it.”  
  
“Can we throw this guy in the pool?” Jessica demanded. All four of them looked out the back door to the green, algae coated cesspit stewing on the other side of the glass.  
  
Dean slammed his hand on the table to get Brett’s attention and smiled thinly. “I don’t think his crimes deserve that kind of punishment. Yet. Ask me after we’ve had to toss this place for another couple of hours, I might change my mind.”  
  
Miller spat at him.  
  
Sam was slouched back in his own chair, arms crossed and expression suspicious. “How did you scatter this stuff all over and never touch it? You don’t always wear gloves,” he looked pointedly at Miller’s bare hands tied in his lap.  
  
“I’m not telling you jack.”  
  
“Even if it’s cursed and telling us could save your life?” Jessica asked.  
  
Miller snorted. “I don’t believe in Santa Clause either, lady. I’m not five. You want the damn stuff, you find it yourself. I never touched it. Prints, remember?”  
  
Jessica’s eyes widened as a sudden possibility occured to her. “Does someone else live here?” The house was a disaster, with the cluttered debris of several peoples’ lives scattered all over the place. They had been assuming, based on Miller being unmarried and with no other obvious tenants, that he lived alone. But it wouldn’t be impossible for some of the crap thrown around to be of more recent vintage and belong to another resident.  
  
Brett turned his head and said nothing, lipse set in a hard line. He was definitely paler than he had been.  
  
“Shit.”  
  
  
 **Chapter Five**  
  
Three hours and twenty minutes later, almost all of the jewelry was piled on the kitchen table. Brett hadn’t said a word in hours. Dean and Jessica had continued the grimy chore of searching for the missing pieces while Sam continued to linger in the kitchen keeping an eye on Miller. They were all pleased when the remaining jewelry actually started showing up --between couch cushions, beneath a dresser, tossed in a desk drawer-- scattered around like someone had been wearing them and carelessly set them down when done.  
  
Jessica was working in the front hall, riffling drawers in a bureau by the door. She finished the last one, having found nothing but old bills, loose change, and an umbrella. Standing up, Jess considered the messy pile of papers on the bureau’s surface.  
  
She carefully picked them up one by one, then paused in surprise when removing an advertisement for an auto loan revealed a silver pendant covered with round stones in a deep wine color attached to a pooled silver chain. Jessica’s crow of triumph could easily be heard in the kitchen.  
  
“Find it?” Sam called.  
  
“Yes! This is the last piece, right?”  
  
“Yep,” Dean confirmed, walking towards her down the hallway. She reached to carefully pick up the pendant. Just as her gloved fingers touched the metal a key rattled in the front lock, startling her badly so that she jarred the papers on the bureau and the entire stack slid into the floor, taking the pendant with it and landing on her feet. For an instant she thought she felt a brush of something more substantial than paper on her exposed ankle just above the edge of her sneaker and leaped back.  
  
“What happened?” Dean asked sharply, turning the corner just in time to see her standing there staring at the floor now littered with papers.  
  
Jessica looked up, at a loss. “I-,” she started, off balance and attention pulled in too many directions, but then the door handle twisted and opened. Dean grabbed Jess’s arm and hauled her back into the living room where they couldn’t be seen immediately. In the kitchen, muffled shouting could be heard where Sam had probably pressed a hand over Miller’s mouth.  
  
“Brett?” a woman’s voice called. Dean was tensed to spring, a few feet back in the dark living room, waiting until the woman walked by the door. But when she passed in front of them and the moment arrived, he sucked in a sharp gasp of air and stayed motionless. The petite brunette had either not noticed the mess in the doorway, or not realized it was a  _new_  mess, and paused in the hall, flipping through mail.  
  
“Brett?” she called again, without looking up. The muffled noises coming from the kitchen seemed to finally register because she looked up, puzzled, and started walking that way again.  
  
“Honey?”  
  
Jessica shot Dean a furious look, then her eyes widened in alarm. Even in the dim light she could see he had turned white as a ghost and had wrapped his arms around himself, shaking.  
  
“Dean?!” she hissed. He shook his head. Jessica swore under her breath. Sam could probably take the woman without a problem, but he couldn’t chase her if she ran, and she could grab a knife... Jess made a decision and stepped into the hallway with deliberate noise. The woman spun at the sound and stared, shocked. Before she could say anything, Jess flashed the friendliest smile she had and spoke up.  
  
“Hi. You don’t know me, and we’ll be leaving in just a moment, but your boyfriend stole a bunch of jewelry from a museum, and we’re here to get it back."

~~~~~

  
Pamela, Brett[](http://statcounter.com/) Miller’s girlfriend, had been upset and furious but, as it turned out, mostly at Brett. About five minutes into the explanation of what they were doing there, Brett’s life had seemed in genuine danger for the first time all day. Dean wasn’t taking part in any of the discussion or accusations flying around the kitchen. He had trailed Jessica and Pamela into the kitchen, and then found a place leaning against a wall. He was still pale and looked ill, but only shook his head impatiently when Sam asked if he was okay. They had other things to focus on.  
  
“We’ve pretty much got everything that we came for. So ...we’re just going to go,” Sam cut into Pamela’s furious tirade at Brett after a few minutes.  
  
“Are you going to turn him in?” she demanded. “He’s a jackass, but I don’t want him to go to jail.”  
  
“No,” Dean finally spoke up. “We’re not working for the museum, we’re...agents, of the guy who gave them the collection in the first place. He’s dead now, but the jewelry belongs to his heirs.” Which was true, but even if Mason Todd had heirs they had no intention of turning the jewelry over to them.  
  
“And what are you going to tell the museum?” Pamela pressed, shooting her boyfriend a lethal look when Brett opened his mouth to say something.  
  
Sam, Dean, and Jessica glanced at each other. Then Dean shrugged. “Nothing. They lost it, they can sweat. We’ll keep our mouths shut if you will.” Pamela seemed too angry to bother with any more questions, and indicated they were welcome to leave. Sam insisted on cutting Brett free first, over his girlfriend’s objections. Jessica packed all of the cursed jewelry into a ziplock bag, then into another ziplock bag, and then into a canvas bag.  
  
In the front hall, Dean paused to gently push the papers aside and retrieve the last piece from where it had fallen. He looked up to meet Jessica’s eyes. “Did it touch you?”  
  
Sam snorted before she could answer. “She’s not stupid, Dean. If it touched her, she would have said something.”  
  
Dean was still watching her face. She started to say something but there was a resounding crash from the kitchen and the yelling reached a new high.  
  
“Time to go, before we get tied up with a murder,” Sam said wearily, a tightness at the corners of his eyes betraying the pain he was in. Jess nodded in agreement and opened the bags for Dean. He dropped the pendant in, she sealed them up, and the three of them headed back to the car and the long drive back to South Dakota.  
  
“See how easy that was?” Dean asked with satisfaction once the trip was underway. “A little dirt, a little grime, and all the nasty little cursed crap is back in safe hands. We’ll take it out to Bobby’s and bury it in his yard or something. Maybe melt it down.”  
  
Jessica rubbed her cold arms where she was sitting cross-legged in the front seat. “I’d be happier if we knew what the curse did.”  
  
Dean’s face fell into expressionless lines. “Something nasty.”  
  
“You don’t know that,” Sam spoke up from the backseat. “For all we know it makes your toenails purple.”  
  
Dean gave a derisive snort.  
  
“I’m not saying it  _does_ ,” Sam continued, “just that it could be something completely innocuous. Maybe that’s why Todd donated it. The locals certainly weren’t worried about it.”  
  
“We had this conversation,” Jessica cut in. “And it didn’t go anywhere then, either. The jewelry is cursed, and now it won’t be out in circulation. Congratulations all around. Someone buy me a steak. And a shower.”  
  
“Admit it,” Dean smirked. “You guys had fun.”  
  
“Which part was fun, Dean?! The crawling around all day in a house that should be condemned, the taking someone hostage, or the possible risking our lives to an unknown curse?” Sam demanded.  
  
“The part where you weren’t stuck in an office staring out a window wondering what the hell you are doing with your life,” Dean said with great satisfaction.  
  
“Not all jobs are like that,” Sam said frowned.  
  
“Yours would have been.”  
  
The usual banter was diverting for a while, but Jessica’s gaze kept falling on the narrow strip of skin above her ankle. The more time passed, the less certain she was about what had happened when the paper fell. It had just been a glancing touch after all, and the pendant was heavy and should have fallen straight to the floor. She told herself it made far more sense that what had brushed her skin was an overdue bill, or a stuffed envelope, or maybe an advertisement for a credit card. If she had been  _that_  sure, Jessica told herself, she would have spoken up at the house, but after this much time it seemed silly. Other than a headache from breathing in dust all day, she was fine. She tuned back into the conversation in time to hear Dean shrug off Sam's questions about what had spooked him in the house with mutters about dust in his eyes and fending off a sneeze. Jessica highly doubted it, but was willing to give him the benefit of the doubt since he seemed okay and wasn’t obviously bleeding.  
  
They were back on the road, mission accomplished.  
  
  
 **Chapter Six**  
  
Bobby seemed unimpressed with their exploits in the Carolinas when they reached his house again a couple of days later, but not displeased. Dean had apparently been serious about spending a day or two in Atlantic City, but Sam hadn’t been interested in anything that involved walking and Jessica hadn’t quite been able to shake her headache. Dean grumbled, but with some salacious promises to sweeten the pot, had been willing enough to put his pool hustling on the back burner in favor of just heading back to Bobby’s.  
  
“So ...melt it?” Dean asked, sitting on the counter in the kitchen while Bobby poked through the loot with a pencil and an expression of distaste.  
  
“Yeah, that’s usually enough to break any spellwork on it. Melt it and then bury it, just in case. Everything go okay?”  
  
“Seems to have,” Sam answered him. “Dean called his friend to check and no one seems terribly excited about the break-in or the missing items anymore. No one is looking for it or breathing down the museum’s neck, so it looks like everything is just going to be quietly swept under the rug.”  
  
“Sounds good. You guys have another job lined up or planning on staying around for a while?”  
  
“We’re staying until Sam’s healed up, then ...not sure.” Jessica shrugged.  
  
“Do you have another job for us?” Sam asked.  
  
Bobby grunted. “Always jobs that need doing. I thought you and Jess were going to sit on the bench, though.”  
  
“We’re not going to let Dean get killed because we didn’t want to get out of the car,” Jessica said firmly.  
  
“Then you might want to rethink your plans, because anytime you tag along could get him killed -- or save him. You don’t get any certainties in this life.”

~~~~~

  
Two weeks later, Sam’s ankle was a lot better and almost all of the discoloration was gone, but he was still limping on it and was resigned to not doing any running for a while. Possibly a long while. He hadn’t had a sprained ankle since childhood and being unable to move freely was intensely frustrating. It didn’t help when anytime he mentioned how annoying it was Dean chimed in that it was karma for spending all of his time holed up in the library before. So far, Sam had limited his response to dirty looks.  
  
Dean wasn’t in the house much anyways. With time to burn and in better spirits after their road trip, Dean was taking advantage of the opportunity to pull the Impala’s engine apart and do some cleaning and maintenance. He cleared himself a space in Bobby’s barn, dug up a few space heaters, and pretty much moved in.  
  
Sam couldn’t think of many things he would enjoy doing less, but Dean seemed happy enough.  
  
Jess was a more complicated case.  
  
“Are you mad at me?” Sam asked one sunny afternoon. Jessica was sitting on the floor in front of a window, wearing Dean’s boxers instead of Sam’s for once and with her stolen bath robe open over a paint spattered t-shirt. She was chewing on the ends of her hair and staring intently at paperwork spread out on the floor in front of her. She looked up, startled when Sam spoke.  
  
“What are you talking about?”  
  
Sam eased himself down onto a convenient piano bench --an interesting piece since as far as Sam knew Bobby didn’t  _own_  a piano-- and threw his bad ankle up onto the seat of a chair to elevate it.  
  
“I’m talking about you being snappy and short tempered lately. We’re all a little restless and the weather’s been crap, but you just seem pissed about everything. I can’t even  _find_  you half the time.”  
  
Jess picked up one of the papers and waved it at him. “Work, Sam. I’ve had things to do.”  
  
“Yeah, work that should have only taken you an hour or two, and you’ve been dragging it out for almost a week now. What’s going on?”  
  
Jessica grimaced and shoved hair out of her eyes. “First off, I haven’t been ‘dragging it out’, it’s a really technical piece and I’m just ...having trouble focusing on it. Secondly, you make it sound like I’m ripping people’s heads off and throwing plates or something. I’ve just been out of sorts, Sam. And I’m not hiding from you, I’m just trying to get some peace to get this stuff done.”  
  
“Trying to get some peace at night, too?”  
  
She crossed her arms but didn’t answer.  
  
“I thought maybe you were staying up with Dean or something,” Sam continued, “but he said he hasn’t seen you either. Nothing says we have to go to bed together, but it’s been a week now. You’re gone when I fall asleep, and you’re gone when I wake up. If you didn’t keep stealing the blankets, I wouldn’t have any idea you’d even shown up at all. And you still want to tell me there’s nothing wrong? If it’s a problem with us, then I thought we agreed to talk about it. If it’s something else...I just wish you would talk to me.”  
  
Her arms tightened and she wouldn’t meet his eyes. “I don’t know. It isn’t you, or Dean. Or being here. I’m just ...out of sorts,” she finished lamely. “I’ve got this horrible headache, I can’t sleep, and I don’t feel like dealing with people.”  
  
He hesitated, then lowered his voice. “You aren’t ...pregnant, are you? I know we’ve been careful but accidents happen.”  
  
Jessica’s eyes flew wide. “And you think I might have maybe  _forgotten to_   _mention_  that to you guys?”  
  
Sam looked miserable enough that after a moment she took pity on him.  
  
“I’m not pregnant, Sam,” she sighed. “The test was negative. All three of them.”  
  
His eyes narrowed. “You get pissy with me for suggesting it, then tell me you were worried enough about it to take  _three tests_?”  
  
She shrugged. “I’m a woman having regular sex with a couple of hot guys. I wasn’t worried, but it seemed reasonable to make sure when I started feeling odd.”  
  
“Drug store tests aren’t one hundred percent positive!”  
  
“Yes,” Jessica agreed patiently. “Which is why I was happy when I got my period. I think that, along with the tests, is pretty conclusive proof. It’s just stress and maybe some kind of head cold. I’m fine.”  
  
“Okay, but you’ve had this headache-”, something occurred to him and Sam's voice sharpened, “-is this the same headache you’ve had since South Carolina?”  
  
Jessica rolled her eyes. “No. It comes and goes. Mostly comes, lately. I have some kind of sinus infection of something. Every problem doesn’t have to be something creepy, Sam.”  
  
“I’m just worried!”  
  
“And I’m fine! Just let me have my space.” She turned pointedly back to her work and Sam stood up. He paused just inside the doorway to look back at her. It wasn’t the argument that had him worried, or even her claim to need space. There was something else going on. He could feel a distance growing and didn’t know how to reach her across it. They had had fights before, even one just before he started law school that was so bad Jess had packed her things and moved out for a month. But they had worked past it, and grown together. He had never felt anything like this before between them, and Sam wasn’t sure that despite her participation in everything that had happened, it wasn’t the prospect of the life they were facing that was causing the wedge.  
  
“I don’t want to lose you,” he said quietly.  
  
Jessica jumped, apparently unaware he was still in the room. “Geeze, Sam! Make a little noise.”  
  
“I’m serious.”  
  
She gave him a somewhat harried look of fond exasperation. “I’m serious, too. I’m not mad, I’m not sulking, and you aren’t going to lose me. I just want to finish this project so I don’t have to think about it anymore. Go bother Dean or Bobby for a while, and I’ll see what I can do to make this up to you later on tonight, deal?”  
  
“You don’t have to make anything up to me, just...wake me up when you come to bed?”  
  
“I will.” She smiled and Sam felt that maybe he had been wrong after all. Maybe he just had too much time and too little activity and was obsessing over meaningless details. Dean didn’t seem to find anything alarming about her behavior when Sam talked to him about it, and when Jess bounded into bed with him later that night, full of high spirits and creative ideas, he was sure he had been imagining things.  
  
The conversation came back to haunt him two weeks later when she packed her bags and left.

~~~~~

  
“It’s not for long, Sam!”  
  
“You said you weren’t going to leave,” he insisted.  
  
She gave him a  _look_. “That’s a different kind of leaving. I’m just going home for a week or two. My parents are worried sick, they haven’t seen me in over a year, and I think you will survive a few days of absence. Look at Dean! He isn’t worried.”  
  
Dean looked up from the omelet he was eating. “Are you sure you don’t want us to come with you? Sam and I can find plenty to do while you visit with your folks if you don’t want us hanging around. Places to go, monsters to shoot, stuff like that.”  
  
“Thanks, but no thanks,” Jess said dryly. “I think I will sleep better without the mental image of Sam trying to limp away from a Yeti haunting my dreams.”  
  
Sam gave Dean a glare behind Jess’s back, so Dean cleared his throat and tried again. “It’s just that we’ve, uh, noticed you don’t seem to be feeling well lately. I know you want to see your family and all, but are you sure you’re okay?”  
  
Jessica rolled her eyes and shouldered her bag. “I didn’t know paranoia was contagious.”  
  
“Just because you’re paranoid, doesn’t mean you’re wrong,” Bobby said, pulling his jacket off a hook behind the door and sliding it on.  
  
“I’m just going home for a week or so! And no,” she growled at Dean, “I’m not homesick or unhappy, I just haven’t seen my parents in a while and they would probably like some physical proof I’m alive. This isn’t a big deal.”  
  
“I don’t know why you’re snapping at me, I didn’t say anything,” Dean defended himself.  
  
Jess hesitated, looking confused for a moment. Then Bobby pulled his keys out of his pocket and her expression cleared. “Whatever. I’ll be back soon. If you guys take off before I get back, just give me a call so I know where to meet up with you.”  
  
“Are you going to see a doctor while you’re gone?” Sam asked quietly.  
  
“For what?”  
  
“You’re headaches. I know they’re still bothering you.”  
  
“It’s my head, Sam. If there’s a problem, I’ll let you know about it,” she snapped. Sam’s expression darkened but he didn’t say anything else.  
  
Jessica looked around. “Anyone else want to raise an objection or is there a chance I can catch my plane on time?”  
  
Bobby rolled his eyes. “I’ll be in the truck.”  
  
“Great.” Jessica waited until he was gone, then threw her arms around Dean and kissed him. It went on for a few minutes, until Sam made an exaggerated show of checking his watch and sighing.  
  
“I’m not sure you deserve a kiss,” she told Sam dryly when she surfaced.  
  
“I’m just-”  
  
“Worried! I know! I’m telling you not to be. See you soon.” She stood on her tiptoes to kiss him until Sam relented enough to meet her halfway.  
  
“Are you sure you’re not pregnant?” he whispered into her ear when he slid his arms around her tightly.  
  
“Are you sure you don’t want a farewell knee in the balls?” she whispered back menacingly.  
  
“I’m sure,” he said in a normal voice.  
  
“Me too,” she said pointedly.  
  
“I’ll miss you,” he tried.  
  
“Goodbye, Sam. I’ll tell my parents you said ‘hi’ and are doing well.” Jessica grinned. Sam flinched.  
  
“What are you going to tell your parents about me?” Dean asked innocently.  
  
“Not a damn thing,” Jess responded serenely.  
  
Bobby blew the horn of the truck out in the yard and she ran out with one last wave of farewell.  
  
“What was that all about --with the whispers?” Dean asked after she was gone.  
  
“Nothing. She just hasn’t been feeling well, I’m a little worried.”  
  
Dean shrugged. “Her parents have better medical access than we do and a hell of a lot more money. If she’s sick, they’ll take care of it. But she seems fine to me, just a little moody. You’ve known her longer, though. You really think something’s wrong?”  
  
“Well,” Sam watched his brother closely, “I asked her if she could be pregnant.” He felt a sort of petty pleasure when Dean choked on a bite of his omelet. No one was  _making_  Sam worry about Jess, but it felt only fair that Dean get to suffer a few moments of blind panic too..  
  
“ _Pregnant?_ ” Dean wheezed.  
  
“I was wrong.” Sam shrugged. Dean glared daggers and drained his glass of water to clear his throat.  
  
There was a comfortable quiet in the kitchen for a few minutes as Sam threw together his own breakfast and Dean flipped through the paper. When they were done, Sam slid scrambled eggs onto a plate and turned to the table. He was surprised to see Dean staring absently at the wall instead of at the print.  
  
“Something wrong?”  
  
“No,” Dean said slowly, obviously still lost in whatever thought he’d been having. “I was just ...you know how she said she wasn’t homesick or anything? And I said I didn’t know why she was pissed at me since I hadn’t said anything?”  
  
“Yeah, so?”  
  
“Well, I didn’t  _say_  anything, but that’s pretty much what I was  _thinking_.”  
  
Sam blinked, fork halfway to his mouth. “I would think if Jessica was some kind of telepath, we might have noticed before now. That _she_  would have noticed?”  
  
Dean shrugged. “Hey, you thought she was pregnant. Telepathy wouldn't be any more of a disaster than that. It’s not like anyone else in this relationship is exactly normal”  
  
“That’s...an interesting perspective.”  
  
Dean folded his paper and leaned back in his chair, giving Sam a speculative look. Sam tolerated it for about five minutes before meeting Dean’s gaze head on. “What?” he demanded.  
  
“Nothing, just… I’m completely in for this threesome thing, you know I am, but this is the first time we’ve really been alone together since, Jesus, you left for Stanford?”  
  
“We aren’t alone now, Dean. I think Bobby has plans to come back at some point. Like this afternoon.”  
  
“Maybe we don’t have to stay  _here,_ ” Dean pressed. “It’s not a secret you’re burned out on the Bar stuff, and I feel fine now. Jessica went home to touch base with her folks for a few days, no reason we can’t do our own little type of reunion.”  
  
Dean’s enthusiasm was infectious and Sam found himself grinning back, cautiously. “What did you have in mind?”  
  
  
 **Chapter Seven**  
  
“This is not the same thing as going home for a visit, Dean!” Sam yelled over the wailing moans of the shambling dead. “The next time you suggest something, remind me to ignore you!”  
  
Dean, breathless after a half mile at a dead run to escape from the last wave of the undead, was not pleased to have stumbled into another. He was still enjoying it more than sitting on his ass, though.  
  
“Zombies, Sam! What the hell are you bitching about? How many people get a chance to fight  _real fucking zombies_? You know how much they pay to shoot these things at the arcade?!” They had run out of ammo more than an hour ago, and from the murderous glare Sam directed at him, it was a good thing Dean was out of range of the baseball bat Sam was sporting instead.  
  
So maybe they weren’t  _real_  real zombies, but Dean didn’t know what else to call mindless corpses that crawled out of their grave intent on eating people. Fortunately for the human residents of Desult, they were neither fast nor intelligent. They also seemed limited to the five mile area around the town center. Dean didn’t know where the local police were, but the residents had wasted no time in fleeing the area. And whatever Sam’s complaints, Dean was having a  _fantastic_  trip so far. Dean had enjoyed life more in the last ten days than he had in the last ten years. There had been a few down spots, too, but those had mostly been Sam’s fault.  
  
Only one thing would have made this particular episode better for Dean, and that was if Jess had been there to enjoy it with him. He though she might have been a little horrified, but she was still new to the life and underneath her better sensibilities she had a sense of crazy that would do any hunter proud. He was certain she would have enjoyed at least the  _idea_  of a zombie horde. Certainly more so than the overgrown whiner at his back claimed too.  
  
“Sam, did you hear me bitching when you made us stop to spend time staring at freaking Mount Rushmore?”  
  
“That-- that was a historical monument, Dean! It was important, and interesting. And nothing at the there tried to kill you!” Dean could  _feel_  the outrage in Sam’s voice and it made him grin, even as he took another swing at a grasping hand.  
  
“Some of these zombies look pretty historical, too,” Dean pointed out. He ignored Sam’s unflattering rejoinder, attention caught by something out of the corner of his eye. Dean turned in that direction, distantly pleased that the zombies, for all that more than a dozen were loitering around the plaza, were so far content to just attack as they seemed to notice the living in their midst. No organization or coordination at all. After a moment, he saw the flash again and movement up in a bell tower where no one had any business being. No legitimate business, anyways. A feral smile curved his lips.  
  
“I think I found our summoner.”

~~~~~

  
After dealing with the source of the zombie problem, they found a house that looked to have been abandoned in some haste, slipped into the back, stripped, and used the hose to sluice off most of the gore. Zombie fighting was interesting but not something Dean wanted to do every week. He was just glad cleaning all of the bodies up from where they had collapsed after their summoner was dead wasn’t his job. Cleaning themselves up was disgusting enough.  
  
“Why do you think he jumped?” Sam asked, pulling a clean t-shirt on over his damp skin.  
  
“Because two guys covered in blood and other assorted nastiness were charging after him with guns and he figured the flagstones would be less painful?” Dean suggested, stuffing their filthy clothes into a trash bag for later washing.  
  
“The guns were empty.”  
  
“He didn’t know that,” Dean shrugged. “And besides, maybe he just tripped? It doesn’t matter, Sam. He’s dead, the zombies are just corpses again, and the people are safe.” He paused, trying to read Sam’s expression in the dim light. “You aren’t  _sorry_  he’s dead, are you?”  
  
“No. It was just ...unexpected.”  
  
Dean punched his shoulder, ignoring the glare Sam sent his way. “A lot of things in life are unexpected, Sammy. You just have to seize your moments when they come. Take this thing with you, me, and Jess for instance. You think I saw this coming?”  
  
“I know I didn’t,” Sam agreed.  
  
Dean reached out and rubbed a thumb over Sam’s cheekbone. “You have some stuff.”  
  
Sam stood patiently for a moment, but when Dean’s hand lingered, he shied and stepped back, shouldering the trash bag and heading for the gate. Dean scowled but followed without comment.  
  
Back in the Impala, Sam pulled out his cell phone and made a call. Dean didn’t have to ask who he was calling or what the result was when Sam frowned and flipped the phone shut again without speaking.  
  
“How many times is that today?”  
  
“Screw you, Dean.”  
  
“I wasn’t making some kind of judgment, Sam! I’m concerned. I just wanted to know.”  
  
“Nine.”  
  
“Nine,” Dean repeated. There was nothing but the sound of the road for a few minutes before he spoke again. “I’m sure she’s fine. Running around, doing family things.”  
  
“She didn’t sound good last time she called.”  
  
“She sounded tired, Sam. You said so yourself. I’m sure things are... stressful, what with the way she left Palo Alto with you and all to go looking for me. Her parents will calm down, she’ll get some sleep. It’s fine.”  
  
Sam nodded but said nothing, preoccupied with his thoughts. The first few days Jessica had been gone she had called two or three times a day, then once a day, then every other day. But closing in on two weeks it had been three days since she had called or returned a message. After the second day with no contact, Sam had started leaving voice mail with increasing frequency, but had finally tapered down to just hanging up. He was worried, and Dean couldn’t blame him. Jessica had been practically welded to his side for the better part of eight years, and he imagined having her gone felt kind of like he had when Sam had taken off for college. There was a gigantic person sized hole in Sam’s life, and it didn’t help that he couldn’t even talk to her now. Dean wasn’t really excited about it either, but he recognized that he lived a life where a missing person was almost always bad news. Jessica wasn’t a hunter, and the odds were significantly higher that she was simply busy and distracted catching up with her old life than that anything... unfortunate, had happened to her.  
  
It still would have been nice if she had called. But not having her around had given him a chance to do some serious catching up with Sam without dealing with the complications of their three-way relationship. When they had rescued him from almost certain death in the forest those months ago, things had pretty much immediately gotten all tangled up with sex. There hadn’t been time for him and Sam to just be brothers and repair that relationship before running flat-out into a different one. Dean had been a little surprised to find out just how easily they melded back into their old patterns as hunters, and siblings. And equally surprised, but less pleased, that getting out of Bobby’s house hadn’t done much to fix Sam’s attitude about  _other_  aspects of their relationship.  
  
Sam keyed open the door of their motel room, dropped both of their duffle bags on the floor, and slumped onto the edge of the bed. “I’m beat.”  
  
“Zombies.” Dean nodded sagely. “Get you every time. At least all your limbs are intact.”  
  
“Yours too,” Sam yawned.  
  
Dean dropped the trash bag of their filthy clothes under the window, wincing inside as it squelched, and locked the door. He leaned against the wall because he still needed a shower to really feel clean, and if he sat down, he didn’t think he was going to get up anytime soon.  
  
“So, in ten days we’ve done what on Bobby’s housekeeping list? Two ghosts, a poltergeist, and now a horde of zombies? Not bad.”  
  
“Don’t forget the possessed chicken.”  
  
Dean rolled his eyes. “I’m trying to. It wasn’t possessed, it was just crazed. And delicious.”  
  
“I still can’t believe you ate that,” Sam grimaced.  
  
“Too much soft living, Sam. You’ve forgotten you have to eat when the eating’s good,” Dean said loftily.  
  
Sam rolled his eyes. “The living has never been hard enough that you have to eat possessed poultry, Dean. Ramen five nights in a row, maybe, but there’s a line.” He eyed his brother and added, “For most people.”  
  
Dean just shrugged with good humor and Sam looked up with a half-smile. Muscles aching with a hard job well done, all the bad things dealt with, and now safe in a place familiar in its generic motel shabbiness; it felt like old times. Too much like old times, and Dean felt his smile slowly fade.  
  
“What’s wrong?” Sam asked.  
  
“Nothing’s wrong, exactly. I just ...do you feel this?”  
  
Sam didn’t pretend not to understand. “Yeah, like when Dad used to send us off to work alone. It feels ...good. Even with the zombies, this was a good idea.”  
  
“You sound surprised. Have you been doubting the awesomeness of my planning, Sam?”  
  
“Now and then,” Sam admitted without a trace of guilt.  
  
“Running from the undead?”  
  
“Definitely one of those moments. Running is not exactly my favorite sport right now.”  
  
“Good thing they were slow,” Dean observed brightly.  
  
Sam just glowered. But the easy familiarity and rhythm of the banter just reminded Dean of what was troubling him.  
  
“You know this is never going to work, don’t you?” he said in a more serious tone.  
  
Sam frowned. “What isn’t?”  
  
“The grand plan you and Jess have,” Dean said reluctantly. “It just ...isn’t going to fly. Bobby knows it, he’s been dropping warnings for a while now, but we’ve all been too distracted with other things to deal with it.”  
  
“I still don’t-”  
  
“This thing, Sam. This thing with you, me and Jessica, where I’m supposed to hunt and you guys play second banana or whatever. You saw her face when Bobby said anytime you come or don’t come with me on a hunt could be the difference between life and death. And look at now! You were only supposed to be keeping me company for these jobs, too, but you haven’t hung back yet. And you may have been studying your ass off for law stuff when we first crashed in on Bobby," he added, "but that was only the first few days.”  
  
“I’ve been studying!” Sam protested.  
  
“Yeah,” Dean snorted, “but not law. Not unless Petronelli’s Guide to Astral Travel and the Abraxis Bestiary are things they test on the state Bar. I didn’t go to college, Sam, but that doesn’t make me stupid. You’re either burned out or uninterested, and way too willing to follow me into the field. And I don’t think Jessica is capable of watching either of us, but definitely not both of us, go heading off into mortal danger without tripping along at our heels. Which might be okay with a little more skill on her part, but it’s not the plan you guys keep talking about. I just want to know if you’re ready to face reality yet.”  
  
Sam studied the carpet and sighed. “I don’t know. I don’t think it’s something that has to be decided, Dean. As long as we all agree we are sticking together, then the rest of the stuff can just ...happen. I see what you’re saying. I just think we need to see how things go.”  
  
Dean shrugged. “Fine with me, we all know what I’m going to be doing.” His eyes narrowed. “And since we are hashing out messy details ...I have to say I’m not entirely sorry Jess isn’t on this trip.”  
  
Sam looked up, expression exasperated. “Tell me you’re not jealous.”  
  
“I’m not jealous,” Dean repeated obediently.  
  
“ _Dean_...”  
  
“What, Sam! I’m not. I like having sex with you and Jess together.” He shrugged. “I like the way she feels, and the way she looks, and the sounds she makes when she has her legs wrapped around me. Almost as much as I like the way you look when the three of us are in bed and we’ve got you pinned down and-”  
  
“I got it, Dean. You aren’t jealous,” Sam said hastily.  
  
Dean leaned against the wall and crossed his arms. “No, but I wish you weren’t so ...uptight about things when she’s not here.”  
  
“What are you talking about?”  
  
Dean rolled his eyes. “How about that, just then? You’re fine as long as I’m talking about Jess and sex, but I talk about  _us_  and sex and... you shut down. When it’s the three of us you seem involved and like you’re having a good time, but as soon as she steps out of the room, it’s all awkward and  _weird_ , again. I thought it was a ‘being at Bobby’s’ thing, but it’s just the two of us now, in another random freaking motel room, and you’re still acting like someone is going to kick in the door and haul us off for indecency or something. I mean, this whole thing was your idea! I have to say I’m starting to feel a little rejected.”  
  
“Sorry if I’m having a little trouble with it, Dean!” Sam snapped. “I’m trying. It just keeps hitting me that you’re my  _brother_. It’s not a problem of wanting you, it’s a ...I don’t know. Just wrapping my head around it being okay, I guess. I feel like I  _shouldn’t_  be enjoying it. When Jess is here, it’s like, it’s okay, and when she isn’t...”  
  
“No one out here knows we’re siblings, Sam. Is it the gay thing?”  
  
“The  _gay thing_?” Sam snorted. “I started watching your ass when I was fifteen, Dean. I’ve always known you were a guy.”  
  
“I’ve been your brother since you were fifteen too, Sam.” Dean pointed out.  
  
“I know. I just need more-”  
  
“Practice?” Dean suggested, then raked Sam with a look that left no doubt of his intentions. “I think you owe me something for making me have that conversation in the first place. You always make simple things complicated.”  
  
“Practice is good,” Sam agreed, eyes darkening with interest as Dean stalked towards him across the carpet.   
  
Dean stopped in front of him and smiled, fingers busy undoing his belt as he met Sam’s eyes. “I want you to blow me. I want you to take your time, and I want you to do it without looking at anything, or  _thinking_ of anything, but me. And don’t think I won’t be able to see it in your eyes if you can’t follow simple instructions.”  
  
“What if I don’t get it right?” Sam asked, eyes tracking Dean’s hands closely.  
  
“Then I guess I’ll just have to show you how it’s done. You’re smart, I’m sure eventually you’ll catch on.”  
  
“It might take a while.”  
  
“We’ve got a lifetime. Right?” The tone of voice cut into Sam’s preoccupation and he looked up, surprised. Dean’s eyes were serious and locked onto his.  
  
Sam smiled, feeling more certain of himself in that minute than he had in weeks. The hunting had been surprisingly good, had made him feel useful and with purpose more than anything he had done in college. He still was interested in law, but ...it seemed a distant kind of interest compared to the gritty reality of the family trade. It was a brutal, horrifying job -- but it had to be done and he was better equipped than most to do it. He didn’t really have to make any immediate decisions; it was just something to think about. Having his brother aware of his dilemma and apparently supportive of whatever he wanted to do helped.  
  
“We’ve got forever.  _After_  you take a shower.”  
  
Dean scowled, fingers frozen on his zipper. “We washed off.”  
  
“Rotting corpses, Dean.  _All over us_. If you think my mouth is going anywhere near your skin until after you clean up...”  
  
“You are such a girl.”  
  
“You can tell Jess all about it when she calls.”

~~~~~

  
But Jessica didn’t call. Not that night, and not the next day. The following day she left a garbled message on Sam’s phone while he and Dean were in the shower that was barely intelligible.  
  
“Maybe she’s drunk?”  
  
“She sounded like she was crying,” Sam paced, arms crossed and expression dark.  
  
Dean paused in the midst of stuffing clothes back into his duffle bag. “What did she say?”  
  
“I couldn’t understand most of it. Something about her mom, and her friend Stacy, and a car, and a tree, and a dream she had, and voices. I think. She was laughing too, and part of it was in French.”  
  
It was Dean’s turn to frown. “I thought you said she was crying.”  
  
“It was hard to tell. She might have been doing both.”  
  
Dean finished stuffing clothes in, zipped his bag closed and tossed it at Sam’s feet. “Pack the car; I have to make a call.”  
  
“She won’t answer.”  
  
“I’m not calling Jess,” Dean said tersely. “Just pack the damn car.” He grabbed his cell phone off the nightstand and vanished outside.  
  
Sam did as instructed and drummed his nails on the Impala's roof, waiting for Dean to come back. Sam could see him leaning against a light post at the far end of the parking lot. He seemed agitated and looked to be placing several calls, but if he had gone that far away he obviously didn’t want company so Sam waited in anxious impatience.  
  
Finally, after about forty minutes, Dean jogged back. He held out one hand and Sam tossed him the keys.”  
  
“What was that all about?” Sam asked.  
  
“Just get in the car. We’re going to Palo Alto.  
  
  
 **Chapter Eight**  
  
“So, let me understand this.” Sam said narrowly. “You called your buddy Eli, and he told you Pamela, Brett Miller's girlfriend, is dead. And now we are hightailing it to California because you think Jess is in danger?”  
  
“No,” Dean snapped, eyed intent on the road and expression grim. “I knew the girlfriend was dead, I had a nasty suspicion about the how, so I called to find out and  _that’s_  why we’re hightailing it to California.”  
  
Sam twisted to stare at Dean. “What do you mean you knew she was dead?! She was only about thirty, Dean! And she seemed fine when we were there. A little ditzy and pissed maybe, but not like she was at death’s door.”  
  
Dean’s jaw clenched and unclenched a few times.  
  
“ _Dean._ ” Sam hit his shoulder, furious.  
  
“She wasn’t alone,” Dean finally said, knuckles white where he gripped the wheel. “I could feel it as soon as she walked in the house. Could feel  _him_. And when she passed by where I was standing and I could see... you don’t fucking know what it’s like, Sam. It’s like those freaking drawings, but a thousand times worse. You don’t know if you want to fall on your knees or run screaming, and neither would make a damn bit of difference. I know, because I’ve tried.  
  
“What the hell are you...,” Sam froze, remembering exactly what Dean’s visions were. “An  _angel_? You saw an angel with Pamela at Miller’s house?!”  
  
Dean nodded tightly.  
  
“And you didn’t say anything?!” Sam yelled.  
  
“No! I didn’t  _say anything_  because it wouldn’t have done any good! She was dead, Sam. I’ve been doing this for two years now. You know how many of those glowing freaks I’ve seen? There is  _nothing_  you can do about it. I tried, and tried, and... there just _isn’t_. I knew if I said something, you and Jess would want to get involved anyways, and I didn’t want to go through it again. She’s dead. Period.”  
  
Sam’s harsh breathing as he struggled with anger filled the silence between them for a few minutes. Finally, he spoke in a calmer tone. “What does that have to do with Jessica? You can’t have seen one of those things with--”  
  
“No,” Dean snapped. “I would have mentioned  _that_. Jesus, Sam.”  
  
“Then  _what_?” Sam snapped back.  
  
Dean drew in a shuddery breath. “Pamela didn’t just ...die. She went, uh, a little insane first.”  
  
“What does that mean?” Sam growled.  
  
“It’s means she was hearing things, Sam. Voices and crap like that. She was laughing, crying, screaming, clawing at her head. Totally out of her mind from what Eli said. Apparently, Pamela started hearing things, or at least said she was hearing things, a few days after we left. Then it got bad, fast. And you know the only things Brett could say when Eli asked him how it started? ‘She said she had a headache.’”  
  
“Jessica...” Sam breathed, a look of panic on his face.  
  
“Yeah.”  
  
“Drive faster.”  
  
“Getting arrested won’t help our case, Sam. We’ll be there in about twelve hours. It’s been about a month since South Carolina. Pamela only died a few days ago, but the way that jewelry was scattered, she had to have been cursed almost as soon as Brett dragged it home. There should be some time left to figure things out. But just to get a jump on things, since Jess won’t pick up the phone, why don’t you try calling our sorta in-laws and see if they feel chatty? There’s always the chance we’re wrong about all of this and she’s just turned into an airhead away from our steadying influence.”  
  
Sam didn’t bother dignifying that with a response other than a quick, incredulous look. He pulled out his phone and started dialing.

~~~~~

  
“ _Committed?_ ” Dean hissed, leaning in over a dinner of hotdogs and French fries. The crappy roadside diner didn’t even do burgers --a crime if Dean had ever seen one-- but the menu was a far distant second to other matters on his mind. “What do you mean _committed?_!”  
  
Sam had refused to even order any food, so Dean had ordered a bunch of sides he wouldn’t have usually bothered with and made a point of leaving them well within Sam’s reach. His brother was picking at them absently.  
  
“I mean locked up in a nuthouse, Dean! What the hell else do you think that word means?”  
  
“Explains why she hasn’t been returning calls. Shit. What happened?”  
  
“After her parents hung up on me three times in a row, I tried her siblings. I didn’t think any of them were going to talk to me either but Ashley-”  
  
“Her older sister?”  
  
“One of them. She’s always gotten along best with Jess, and even after we left and she was getting either ostracized or guilt tripped, they stayed in touch. Anyways, she didn’t really want to talk to me either, but I think she wanted to talk to  _someone_  and apparently the family isn’t discussing it at all. From what she said, Jess came home, was fine for a few days, then started acting weird, got weirder --answering people before they spoke, screaming at them to shut-up, telling-off random passerby’s-”  
  
“Good times. I always knew she was my kind of girl.”  
  
Sam glared and continued. “But Ashley said it was sporadic, and Jess insisted the people she was yelling at spoke to her first. They took her to a doctor for headaches and stress, he gave her some pills, they took her home. Apparently, she wasn’t sleeping either. They had trouble waking her up one morning and all she did, once she was awake, was scream or cry. Took her to a hospital-”  
  
“And then she was committed,” Dean finished grimly.  
  
“Yeah.”  
  
“Why the fuck didn’t she call us when it started?!”  
  
“I don’t know but ...she’s still new to this, Dean. She’s seen a lot for a year, but it’s not instinctive for her to think it might have been a curse. Probably would have thought brain cancer first. She doesn’t want to worry anyone, takes some pain killers. It gets worse, she’s stressed out, she goes to the doctor. He has an answer that kind of makes sense, gives her some stronger meds. Things seem okay. Ashley said she really seemed to think the people were talking, so that might not have been a sign to here there was a problem until it was too late...”  
  
Dean nodded impatiently. “She’s not sleeping well, if at all, and that started before she even left Bobby’s, so she’s exhausted -- which leads to crap judgment. She gets more exhausted, now she really is pushing crazy. Takes a really long nap and when she wakes up, her grip on the problem is completely gone. We’re still going to have a fucking ‘Come to Jesus’ when I get my hands on her again.”  
  
Sam licked his lips. “Jess and I... we aren’t married, Dean. Her parents have legal custody of her now, and I’m the bastard who lured their sweet baby with a bright future out into a life of sin and rootless drifterdom. They are not going to let us see her.”  
  
Dean’s smile was edged. “Correction, Sam. They aren’t going to let  _you_  see her, me -- they don’t know a damn thing about. So you keep mom and pops busy, which should distract anyone else hanging out by the doors, and I’ll see what’s going on in the back.”

~~~~~

  
Getting an address was as easy as calling Jessica's sister again. She didn’t seem to hate Sam and thought seeing him might make her sister feel better. Dean was fairly confident her parents weren’t going to see things that way, but he liked optimism in a girl, especially when it was useful. Sam, despite having lived in the area for more than half a decade, had no idea where the place Ashley mentioned was, so they swung by an internet cafe to print directions. The location they eventually arrived at was tucked neatly down a shady drive with well-appointed landscaping and muted colors. It looked more like an upper end retirement home than a nuthouse, and reeked of money to Dean’s appraising eye.  
  
He entered the lobby ahead of Sam and loitered by the vending machines, out of sight. Jessica’s parents, as Ashley had warned, were in the lobby. Her mother seemed to have set up a long-term camp so there was little point in waiting for them to leave. Instead, Dean waited until Sam entered and Mrs. Moore was onto her second round of “We trusted you, how could you do this to us. We loved you like a son!” this time with more pitch and hand wringing, then took advantage of a slow swinging door to slip into the secured corridor of the almost creepily pristine and discrete hospital.  
  
Things were looking up when the first door he tried proved to be some kind of laundry. It couldn’t be the main one with all the bedding they surely had to wash, but a few neat stacks of scrubs were on a wire rack by a washer/dryer set that would have been at home in any house or apartment. He helped himself, stuffed his own clothes under some paper and lint in the trash, grabbed a clip board with blank forms of some kind from a bin by the door and sauntered out into the corridor.  
  
Beyond the security doors, he could still hear Mr. and Mrs. Moore letting Sam have it. Dean headed deeper into the hospital. From a cart inside an empty room, he added a stethoscope and then struck gold with a badge clip. There was no badge attached, but he stuck the clip on the scrub pocket like the badge was hanging inside to keep it out of his way, and continued on. ‘Air of the busy professional’ was one of his best acts, and sure enough he met no resistance from any of the people he passed as he walked the halls, checking names on doors. A few second glances maybe, but no one challenged his right to be there. He added a few angry mutterings and some emphatic pen scrawls to amp up his aura of ‘leave me alone’, and kept wandering.  
  
Even better was when he found a locker room. He needed a security badge to open patient doors. The staff seemed willing to overlook a lot, but would probably draw the line at catching him trying to force a door open with a screwdriver and his shoulder. Some of the lockers had names and locks on them, but this wasn’t Dean’s first rodeo and he knew that without management breathing down their necks people tended to get tired of combination locks, fast.  
  
It took him five tries on the nameless unsecured lockers to find one someone had just shoved their stuff into. Armed with a badge named ‘Ricardo Carter’ stuffed into his pants’ pocket, he was ready to find Jess and get the hell out. The place was obviously, but their security sucked. And it was depressing as hell. Jessica might be a recent acquisition, but from what Dean could tell, most of the rooms had engraved name-plates --which meant long-term to him-- and glancing through windows and open doors showed him a population drugged to the gills, drooling at television screens or doing puzzles a five year old wouldn’t have found challenging. Some sat in wheelchairs in a common area he passed, scrub clad orderlies patiently working with them. Dean tried to breathe shallowly in case despair was contagious.  
  
Finally, at the corner of an intersection, he spotted what he was looking for. A white scrap of paper taped to the wall next to the door with ‘J. Moore’ written on it in heavy black ink. Dean looked around casually to see if anyone was watching, then pressed the badge against the electronic security pad, and when the red light turned green, let himself in.  
  
For a moment he had to blink, looking for the woman he knew in the pale, unkempt mess secured with heavy padded restraints to the bed. He had seen Jess pretty disheveled before, had helped on multiple occasions even, but he had never seen anything like this. Her blond hair was lank and greasy and there were bruises, where she had probably been held down at some point, visible on her arms and her shoulder where the scrub top was twisted up. Her nails were broken and scabbed wounds, stained with some kind of antiseptic and glistening with ointment, marred the sides of her face.There were deep shadows under her eyes and Dean could see tear tracks on her cheeks. And I.V. line dripped something into a needle taped to her arm and her dry, cracked lips moved as she mumbled something unintelligible. Even in her drugged delirium she was twisting restlessly against the restraints.  
  
Dean’s lips set into a tight line. She looked like a woman who  _needed_  to be hospitalized, but whatever they were doing, didn’t seem to be having any positive effect. The room seemed like a nice room, as far as mental institutions went, but the doctors couldn’t help her here. If they were right about it being a curse, and really, Dean didn’t see how they could be wrong at this point, she needed to be with them more than she needed to be locked up in a psych ward. Getting to her had been almost too easy and Dean didn’t want to gamble on fate smiling on him a second time. The plan had really just been for him to scout stuff out and see what Jessica’s situation was, but when life handed you opportunities...  
  
“Jessica,” he called softly, approaching the bed. She mumbled, but didn’t open her eyes. Dean frowned.  
  
“ _Jess_ ,” he hissed, trying again. He put a hand on her bare shoulder to shake her. That got a response, but not the one he wanted. Jessica’s eyes flew open and she screamed, pulling hard enough against the restraints that Dean was worried she would dislocate something. He pulled his hand back like she was on fire, and the instant his skin left hers, she calmed back to the state she had been in before. He cautiously tried touching her through the scrubs and her muttering grew louder, but there was no repeat of her violent reaction of a moment before. Dean scowled at the I.V. bag, then looked around the room.  
  
Dean found what he was looking for on the inside of the bathroom door. He thought it was pretty optimistic considering her state, but he was still grateful that someone thought she would need a bathrobe in the immediate future. It made things a lot easier for him. Cautiously unbuckling one restraint, he growled at the bruises and welts caused by her twisting and waited to see if she reacted. Nothing. Getting the others undone only took a minute or two and he managed to work her into the bathrobe without touching her bare skin again. He stuck some slippers that had been set neatly into the closet onto her feet then worked the I.V. line out gently. Dean clipped off the bag and stuffed it in one pocket of her bathrobe in case they needed it, tossed the needle on the dresser, and pulled her up. At first he worried she wouldn’t walk, but with encouragement, she would take slow shuffling steps, looking around like she wasn’t really seeing what he was seeing. He hoped that was the drugs and she would be more lucid once they wore off. Things would be easier if she could tell them exactly what was going on.  
  
Dean flipped open his phone and made a short call to a weary sounding Sam then poked his head out of the room to check the hallways. It was a straight shot down the long corridor to an exit door behind a wire cage, and if his luck held, the security pass would work on that one too. He grabbed Jess by the arm and half dragged her down the hallway. She didn’t fight him, just shuffled along. They were ten feet from the exit when he heard the sound of voices coming closer off one of the branches they had passed. Out of time, Dean hoisted Jess over his shoulder, covered the last few feet in seconds and swiped the pass. He felt a rush of relief when the light flickered green, then shoved open the exit and bounded through. Over his shoulder he could feel Jessica breathing roughly, though whether she was upset or her position made breathing hard, he couldn’t say. The Impala was right where it was supposed to be. He pulled open the door, lowered Jessica to her feet then crammed them both in the backseat, shoving her down by a terrycloth clad arm so no one could see her through the glass.  
  
“How’d your little chat with her parents go?” Dean greeted Sam.  
  
“Exactly as you'd expect. But she was legally an adult and lots of people know she left with me voluntarily, so they can’t come up with anything to have me arrested for or sue me over. How is she?”  
  
“Not good. But we’ll drive a ways and see how much of this is drugs and how much of this is... something else. She’s not communicating. Let’s just get her back to Bobby’s and go from there.”  
  
Sam glanced back over the bench a few times, but just nodded in agreement and drove on.  
  
  
 **Chapter Nine**  
  
Jessica smelled like a hospital and clearly hadn’t seen more than a sponge bath in days. She was also moving around restlessly, and the third time Dean accidentally brushed her skin and her scream almost made Sam drive off the road, Dean wearily suggested they try to stop. That lasted about five hours. All she would do was sit in the corner of the motel room and rock, muttering things to herself and shaking her head. She didn’t respond to questions, or anything else, and barely seemed aware of their presence, though at one point she looked directly at Dean and snarled “I don’t need your fucking pity!” followed by a string of things in French that neither Sam nor Dean understood specifically, but got the gist of from her tone.  
  
It was obvious she wasn’t going to sleep, and they couldn’t both sleep and leave her alone, so they each grabbed about two and a half hours then hit the road again. Jessica spent the day crying and moaning, but at least she wasn’t screaming. They didn’t want to have to flood her with drugs that didn’t seem to offer any relief. Sam pointed out that she seemed calmer the more remote the area they traveled in. Lucid enough, at one point even, to point to the water Dean was drinking. He handed it to her carefully and watched, resigned, as she spilled most of it on herself. But at least it showed awareness. Sam took her to the bathroom with him at a reststop a couple of times, when they passed one that had bathrooms you didn’t have to walk through the building to reach. Sam didn’t say anything about it when he brought her back out and Dean didn’t ask.  
  
Dean drove most of the trip. Sticking to back roads made the journey even longer than it should have been, but her absence had certainly been noticed and there was every reason to believe the cops would be looking for them. Not necessarily on the road to South Dakota, and they probably didn’t have the Impala’s plates, but there was no reason not to be careful. Sam didn’t put it past the Moores to be able to trace his phone, so he took out the battery and threw it away before they even left California.  
  
Dean also kept craning his neck around to look at her. That got old really quick.  
  
"Dean! Watch the  _road_ ," Sam ordered. That slowed Dean actually turning his head, but Sam still caught Dean flicking glances into the rearview mirror far more often than was probably safe. Sam was about to snap at him again when it occurred to him what Dean might be looking for.  
  
"I thought you could feel them."  
  
"So far," Dean admitted in a low voice. "But there's a first time for everything."  
  
"But ...nothing so far?"  
  
"If one of my glowing friends shows up I will definitely let you know!" Dean snapped.  
  
Sam frowned. "If she doesn't have one, does that mean she's not dying?"  
  
"No," Dean said grimly. "I don't know why some people get escorts and some people don't, but having one hanging around means you will die, not having one hanging around doesn't mean squat."  
  
Sam nodded grimly.  
  
With nothing to do but watch Jessica deteriorate and stare out the window, Sam spent a lot of time using Dean’s phone to talk to Bobby. He answered questions about her condition and every single detail of what had happened in South Dakota, then Bobby told him not to call back unless something changed and hung up.  
  
“You think he has something?” Dean asked.  
  
“I don’t know. I hope so.” Sam pulled the blanket they kept in the backseat over himself then tugged on Jessica until she leaned against him and he could wrap his arms around here. The rest of the trip seemed to take years.

~~~~~

  
Bobby was waiting for them when they pulled in. He pulled the back door open and looked her over without touching.  
  
“She off the drugs?”  
  
Dean and Sam traded a look. “We ...think so. She hasn’t had any in about two days.”  
  
“Any changes?”  
  
“Not really.” Sam said. “She seems better with fewer people around. I guess that’s something.”  
  
Bobby grunted. “I’m not surprised. Put her in my truck.”  
  
“What?” Sam blinked.  
  
“The truck, put her in it,” Bobby said with exaggerated patience.  
  
“Why?” Dean demanded. “We just got her here!”  
  
“You want to argue about it or you want to help her? Put her in the truck and then go on inside. It’s cold out here. This won’t take long.”  
  
Sam scowled but obligingly hauled Jessica out of the car and got her into the cab of Bobby’s truck. Bobby climbed in, and a minute later, was weaving through the junked cars and debris towards the field.  
  
“What the hell is he doing?” Sam stared.  
  
“Beats me, but I’m not going in the house just yet.” Sam nodded in agreement and the two of them climbed up onto the porch to get a better vantage. Off behind the junk were a few hundred acres of empty land that backed up to a state park. The land belonged to farmers, but they only used it for hay and were buddies with Bobby, anyway. At this time of year, it was just rough stubble. The truck made its way slowly out to what looked like a pretty good sized tent up against the forest. After a moment, Bobby climbed out, walked around to pull Jessica out, and then they vanished inside.  
  
“He isn’t going to leave here there, is he?” Sam stared.  
  
Dean crossed his arms. “Let’s wait and see what he has to say. We can always go get her if we have to.”  
  
It didn’t take Bobby long to get back.  
  
“You boys don’t take directions well, do you?”  
  
“It’s still snowing on and off, Bobby! She’s sick, you can’t leave her out there!” Sam argued.  
  
“Best place for her right now. It’s piled high with blankets inside, she’s cozy enough, and maybe the cold will keep her from wandering until she gets her wits about her again. Let’s go sit in the kitchen and talk. It’s not going to make it comfortable in here, but leave the backdoor open so we can see her if she leaves.”  
  
“In the dark?” Dean asked dubiously.  
  
Bobby rolled his eyes. A second later in the growing darkness a light out by the tent flashed on, illuminating the area around the entrance with a harsh white glow.  
  
“Happy?”  
  
“Ecstatic.”

~~~~~

  
Bobby started the conversation by sliding an ancient tome across the table. It was opened to a page with cramped, spidery writing and a black-on-yellow drawing of what looked like a crown. It was elaborately designed and covered in what looked like gemstones and runes. Sam and Dean looked at it for a moment, then Dean let Sam have the book to himself and glanced up at Bobby.  
  
“Okay, I’ll bite. What is it?”  
  
“Anything look familiar?”  
  
Dean glanced back at the book Sam was still studying and shrugged. “No.”  
  
“The stones,” Sam said before Bobby could speak. “I can’t read the writing, but... I recognize the cut on a couple of these stones, I think. The oblong with the hash marks. These are the same as on that jewelry from the museum? What is this a picture of?”  
  
“The Crown of Tongues,” Bobby said dryly. “Catchy, isn’t it?”  
  
Dean looked a little grossed out and took another look at the picture. “It’s not made of them, right?”  
  
Sam gave his brother a withering look. “You like  _zombies_ , but  _this_  makes you squirm?”  
  
“No.” Bobby answered before Dean could retort. “It’s a relic from the Old World. Pretty ancient. It was created to give the wearer the ability to read other people’s thoughts, no matter what language they spoke or how far away they were. Supposedly, to allow them to tell truth from lies and other useful things like that.”  
  
“Did it work?” Sam asked, interested.  
  
Bobby picked up a pair of binoculars on the table and took a long look towards the tent, then set them down with a satisfied look. “Supposedly, but it takes more than mind reading to keep a kingdom stable. Crap happened and eventually it ended up in the hands of the Inquisition.”  
  
“Wow,” Dean observed, “here’s a story going nowhere good.”  
  
“Exactly. They couldn’t keep the crown, too many people knew what it was, but they couldn’t stand the idea of losing that kind of power. They knew enough about spellwork to know that the power was in the stones and not the metal, so they pried them off, stuck on some fakes, made a big production of destroying the crown --then tried to make their own version.”  
  
“It didn’t work,” Sam guessed.  
  
“Of course not,” Bobby snorted. “But idiots gotta keep tryin’. There were a couple of variations tried over the centuries, but they all had the same results. Insanity and death. Eventually, the stones were lost and good riddance, until somehow they ended up in a set of costume jewelry in the mid-thirties. Now, whoever made the stuff knew what they had, because it’s all one set, every single stone accounted for and no extras. But somehow, they lost or misplaced it and it ended up scrambled into a lot of occult paraphernalia that --get this-- Mason Todd won at an auction he bid on for a lark.”  
  
“So he really had no idea what he had, then,” Dean said.  
  
“Who knows,” Bobby snorted. “The man was an idiot. I’ve been on the phone the last ten hours straight figuring this all out. Got a big chunk of it from your buddy Eli and the slackers out in South Carolina who didn’t think Todd’s collection was any big deal. After that woman died, and the way she died, it got a few brain cells firing in that lot and they started putting pieces together. I got a promise from Eli that he would round up anything else Todd left lying around and dispose of it, which still leaves us with a problem.”  
  
“Jessica,” Sam said tightly.  
  
“Yeah.”  
  
Dean leaned back in his chair. “How do we reverse it?”  
  
“For now, keeping her away from people should help fix her up some. The stones were meant to be in a very specific arraignment and setting. Now they just poison anyone who touches them with all of their power, and none of the control. She’s being bombarded with the thoughts and secrets of every single person who comes inside the range of the spell, and that range is growing daily. It’s like having people scream into your head every second of every minute of every hour of every day. Humans don’t handle that kind of thing well. Not sure if it’s exhaustion or just mental overload that kills the victims, but it’s a nasty way to go.”  
  
“How do we reverse it?” Dean repeated.  
  
Bobby leaned back in his chair and eyed them both seriously. “I have no idea. So far, no one who’s touched the loose stones has survived.”  
  
“This has been going on for centuries,” Sam said sharply. “No one has survived,  _ever_?”  
  
“Not so far as we can find. This should buy her some time, but after that... I left her a note explaining what’s going on, some water and toiletries, and a cell phone. If this works out like it should, in a few hours when her brain’s had some rest, hopefully, we’ll get a call.”  
  
Sam started to stand then blanched white and crumpled.  
  
“ _Sam?_ ” Dean snapped.  
  
Sam just shook his head, face pinched in pain.  
  
“What’s going on?” Bobby demanded. " _He_  didn't touch any of that mess did he?"  
  
“Vision,” Dean said flatly, grabbing hold of Sam and helping him back into his seat.  
  
They waited while Sam shuddered through something only he could see. When he finally raised his head, face still chalky and eyes narrowed to slits, Dean slid a bottle of aspirin to him across the table and set glass of water at his elbow.  
  
“What was it?” Dean asked.  
  
Sam shook his head gingerly. “Not sure. Just ...I saw Jessica. And, um, some guy I don’t know. You, Frank Black. I ...think I saw an owl? It was really jumbled.”  
  
“Frank Black? An owl?” Dean repeated, baffled.  
  
Sam glared at him as best he could. “I don’t make the visions, Dean. I just see them!”  
  
“Chill out, Samantha. I was just talking out loud. How did Jess look?”  
  
“Like Jess,” Sam mumbled, rubbing his head.  
  
Dean rolled his eyes. “Did she look insane? Covered in blood? In a casket?  _What?_ ”  
  
“Dean,” Bobby warned, nodding at where Sam was still grimacing in pain. Dean sighed and nodded.  
  
“Sorry,” he said shortly.  
  
“She... looked like Jess. That’s all I can tell you. I mean, she looked... healthy?  _Not_  in a  _casket._ ” Sam managed a more poisonous glare for his brother as Dean’s last comment registered.  
  
“Alright. We have one worthless vision, a nasty collection of cursed, enchanted, whatever stones buried in the backyard, and one slightly insane girlfriend stranded in a tent in the middle of winter. Do we have any  _good_  news?” Dean asked hopefully. Bobby and Sam both shook their heads. “Fine, then. I vote Sam goes to bed. Shut-up, Sam,” Dean said before Sam had time to protest. “You’re wrecked. You go to bed, Bobby and I can flip for who gets first watch on Jess, and after we trade off, you can have a turn. I promise to kick you out of bed if she sticks so much as a toe outside.”  
  
Sam still looked like he wanted to argue, but then just nodded and headed for the stairs. Dean looked over at Bobby.  
  
“You might as well go with him." Bobby directed. "That bed will give you a better night’s sleep than the couch and there’s room enough for two. I didn’t just drive halfway across the country like you. I can stay up and watch Jessica for a while.”  
  
Dean blinked at Bobby. It was one of those moments where he had to wonder just how much Bobby knew or suspected. That they were both involved with Jess, Dean was pretty sure wouldn’t be news. But that he and Sam were involved with each other... There was nothing to say either way in Bobby’s enigmatic dark stare. After a moment Dean shrugged internally, it didn’t matter either way. The situation was what it was.  
  
“If you’re sure,” he finally said.  
  
“I’ll wake you in a few hours,” was all Bobby replied.

~~~~~

  
Sam woke up with drool crusting the side of his face and covered in a light sheen of sweat from sleeping curled up with another half-naked human under a comforter for hours. He didn’t care, though. It was worth it to have an anchor to cling to when nightmares rocked his sleep. Weird nightmares; of feathers and cave-ins and a snake that ate its tail. Sam recognized the Ouroboros but was baffled as to why he would dream of it. None of it was of any concern against the impact of what woke him, though. Dean was lying beside him, talking softly on his cell phone.  
  
“It’s okay, Jess. Just ...calm down. Are you warm enough? Good, that’s good. Bobby said he left some water and stuff to clean up with. In a little bit, but we can try and get you some food... Hey! What did I say about calming down? Yeah, I know it’s not my brain melting, but if you can listen for a sec before screeching at me. That was totally a screech, and you know it.”  
  
He paused for a sec, looking thoughtful in the dim light. “It’s too cold for you to walk far enough away to risk us getting close to drop stuff off. You need to stay with the tent. I was actually thinking... the ground is clear, you know those giant radio controlled monster trucks?”  
  
Sam ripped the phone away from Dean before his brother seemed to even notice he was awake.  
  
“Jess?” he demanded.  
  
“Sam!” Hearing her voice was the best thing that had happened to him since finding Dean alive in the well. “I got Bobby’s note. I feel like crap and my head is all ...buzzy, but I’m okay. At the moment. Are you okay? Dean said you had a vision so I told him not to wake you up-”  
  
“Jess, I’m fine. You know how it goes. I’m so-,” glad didn’t seem quite enough to describe what he felt, “God. I’m so grateful to hear your voice.” He could hear her breathing grow ragged on the other end and knew she was trying not to cry. “I didn’t see Bobby’s note. Do you understand the situation?”  
  
“Yeah,” she sounded subdued. “He explained it pretty well. I... know what’s going on, Sam.”  
  
“How did this happen, Jess?” Sam heard his own voice grow thick with suppressed tears he’d managed to hold in up to this point.  
  
“I don’t know,” she answered miserably. “I think it was the pendent. I knocked the papers it was sitting on over, I thought maybe it brushed my leg, but there was so much other stuff going on and then when nothing happened... I’m so, so sorry. I should have said something. I knew something was wrong with me, I just... I never thought it could be that. By the time things started getting really weird, I was already all screwed up. I remember that I wanted to call you, but I don’t even know if I managed that. Those last few days are a blur.”  
  
Sam remembered a confused phone call about nothing coherent and the sense that something was horribly wrong.  
  
“You did, I got it. Dean and I went to get you after that. Do you remember getting committed?”  
  
“I don’t remember anything after I threw a plate at my mother for saying she should have tried harder to save me from you. Except... I guess she didn’t really say it. Did you guys really break into a psych ward to save me?”  
  
“I let your parents yell at me while Dean snuck in. You can make it up to us.”  
  
“I’ll get right on that. Do you take payment in dirty thoughts?”  
  
“I’ll have to talk to my colleague in bed here and get his opinion on it,” Sam smiled slightly, the normalcy of the conversation easing something in his heart a little.  
  
“You do that,” she said tartly. “And remind him he promised me all the veggie wraps I can eat for surviving.”  
  
“I will.” There was a long pause. “Jess?”  
  
Her voice was low and shaky when she spoke again. “I really am sorry, Sam.”  
  
His own composure crumbled. “It’s fine, Jess, we’ll figure something--” Dean ripped the phone out of his hand.  
  
“Hey, Jess. Stay warm, and call us if you need anything. I’m going to stuff Sam in the shower, get cleaned up myself, and then go see what I can do about arranging some people-free transport to get you some stuff. Think about what you want to read or do while you’re out there. Talk with you soon.” He listened for a minute. “Yeah, me too.” Dean hung the phone up and met Sam’s outraged look. “We don’t do her any good not taking care of ourselves. She’s fine right now, boredom isn’t fatal. Let’s get ourselves together and start working on a fix.  
  


 

  
  
After a week of no progress in any direction, things were so tense in the house that just walking into the room where Sam was pouring over books was enough to set him off. Bobby spent half his days on the computer and half his days on the phone. Dean was mostly left with doing things like forcing Sam to actually take breaks, sending things out to Jess, and hounding his own contacts. By the end of the second week, Jess had moved her tent almost half a mile into the forest and her forced good spirit was wearing thin. She confessed to Dean that she was starting to be able to hear them again on the edges of her mind, and even worse, she could hear people around them: people in the park, in the houses, even as far as town proper. It was a very, very bad sign. She had already outlived Pamela and she didn’t think she could go any further into the forest to make things any better. Her range was just growing too large. Discussing trying to move her someplace more remote was enough to make her hyperventilate at the idea of being that surrounded by people again, even for a little while.  
  
“What if we drugged her?” Dean demanded. “We could knock her ass out, and then haul her off somewhere. There’re lots of places people don’t like, especially in winter.”  
  
“Those tend to be abandoned for a reason,” Bobby said dryly. “And from what everyone has said and observed, her being unconscious doesn’t change a damn thing about the damage, and that’s what’s going to kill her. We need a solution now.” He looked frustrated.  
  
“Doesn’t anyone know a witch that owes them a favor? Or maybe one we could refrain from killing in exchange for a fix?” Dean growled.  
  
“Jessica is only important to us, Dean. Not a lot of other hunters will let a witch of that caliber go to save one woman. Not when letting the witch go could kill dozens more. I’ve sent out feelers, but no bites so far.”  
  
“We’re out of time.”  
  
“I know,” Bobby said gruffly. “But we’re doing everything we can. Jessica knows it, too.”  
  
“We aren’t doing enough!”  
  
Bobby sighed. “Go drag your brother away from the books again. Make him eat something and at least walk around the house a few times before he puts down roots. Has he talked to her today?”  
  
“I don’t think so,” Dean voiced his other source of irritation. “I think... I don’t know what the hell he’s thinking. I would have thought he would be spending as much time on the phone as he can, but instead he’s either in a book or on the computer. Constantly. As far as I can tell, he’s not getting anywhere either.”  
  
“Maybe you should try and get him to see some reason, then. He needs to talk to her while she can still understand what he says, before his voice gets lost in all the others that are breaking her apart.”  
  
Dean nodded in resigned agreement and went to talk to Sam.  
  
It was not a productive conversation.  
  
Though, as Bobby pointed out while fixing him an ice pack about twenty minutes later, Dean’s reflexes seemed to have finally caught up to the rest of his healing, since the punch that should have broken his jaw had barely clipped his chin.

~~~~~

  
Two days later, without a word to anyone, Sam left. Dean, who was sleeping on the couch again, found out when the Impala was gone in the morning. He called Jess to see if Sam had told her where he might be going and her exhausted voice sharpened immediatly to concern.  
  
“How did you  _lose_  him?” she demanded.  
  
“He’s sneaky for a mutant freak,” Dean growled, pissed. “I have to sleep sometime, Jess. I expect him to be old enough not to pull this kind of crap; I’m going to freaking sew bells on him.”  
  
There was a pause, and then, “I love you, Dean.”  
  
Dean stared at the wall, irrationally even angrier.  
  
“Don’t you do this,” he hissed. “Don’t you fucking give up on us, Jess.”  
  
“I’m not,” she snapped back, matching his anger. “I’m just... trying to, get my ducks in line, you know? I’ve written some letters. If I don’t make it, drop them in the mail. One of them is for you. You probably shouldn’t mail that one. That curt enough for you, asshole?”  
  
“Hey, which one of us hears voices in their head? They have a word for that, you know,” he snapped back. Jessica made a sound of incoherent rage and ended the call. Dean felt strangely better about life after the exchange and went to track down his missing car.  
  
If Sam happened to be in her vicinity when he got his hands back on his baby, that would be okay, too.  
  
But he couldn’t find the Impala or Sam, and for three days it was as if his brother had vanished off the planet.

~~~~~

  
On the morning of the third day, Dean woke up to insistent hands shaking him. It seemed like a bad dream and he swatted ineffectually at them. The hands shook harder, unimpressed with his sleepy attempt to dislodge them. Between talking to Jess, trying to find anything that might save her, and looking for Sam -- it had been a very long three days for Dean. Seventy-two hours of wide eyed alertness and turmoil led to a hard sleep.  
  
“Dean, baby,  _wake up_.”  
  
It sounded like Jessica and that depressed Dean to no end. Jessica was dying in the woods and Sam had run off. Only Bobby was sticking by his side, and ...that just wasn’t the same.  
  
“ _Dean._ ”  
  
“Go’way.”  
  
Warm, soft lips locked onto Dean’s own and when his mouth opened instinctively in surprise, an agile and questing tongue snuck in. A very... talented tongue. He knew this kiss.  
  
Dean’s green eyes flew open in shock to meet Jessica’s blue ones from inches away. She grinned. It was an exhausted smile, but a real one. He could see it dancing in her eyes and paused only a heartbeat before wrapping his arms around her and dragging her into the sheets beneath him. She laughed. Her hair was damp and smelled like shampoo and it occurred to Dean belatedly that all she was wearing was a towel. He kissed her face while she tried to push him away and talk, but he only used the opportunity to return her wake-up call with his own skill set. After that, from the way she arched against him and ran her hands down his back, it seemed like she had things she wanted to do more than talk.  
  
“You’re all better?” Dean demanded incredulously moments later, brain and body finally in synch.  
  
“Dean,” she growled, “the time to talk about that was five minutes ago. We’ve moved on.” Jessica pushed against him meaningfully, towel lost in the sheets during the storm of reunion. He obligingly slid a thigh between her legs for her to move against, still stunned by the enormity of having her alive and in bed with him. She didn't look impressed by that either.  
  
“So ...no voices anymore? No headache?”  
  
“No,” she said impatiently. “I’m fine. The only thing likely to kill me right now is sexual frustration. Which is your fault,” she added pointedly. “I only came in to give you the good news. What kind of a tease are you?”  
  
The idea of being called a tease was so outrageous, Dean was momentarily stunned speechless. He had never been a tease in his life. Jessica raised one challenging eyebrow at him. “It’s been a month, Dean. Are you waiting for Christmas?”  
  
It was too tempting to resist. “Christmas only comes once a year,” he told her with mock seriousness.  
  
Her body went still under him. “Oh, my God. I think the official code of womanhood forbids me to have sex with any man who uses that line. I’m really sorry,” Jess said earnestly, starting to wiggle out from under him.  
  
Dean rolled his eyes and pulled the comforter up over them both. “I’m sure I can change your mind,” he muttered, before using his mouth to chart a course down her body, making sure to pay careful attention to all of his favorite spots. It was the last thing either of them said for a while.

~~~~~

  
“So,” Jessica began, sitting at Bobby’s kitchen table, sipping coffee with an air of great contentment. “Where the hell is Sam?”  
  
“Beat’s me,” Dean said in disgust. “Haven’t heard from him since he left. I’m more interested in what happened with you. Sam we can hunt down later.  
  
Jessica shrugged. “I’m... really not sure. Yesterday it was getting bad. Really bad. I honestly didn’t think I would see sunrise. Or want to. I took a handful of those painkillers you sent me, and... I guess I passed out, because what happened next doesn’t really make sense. I dreamed I was still sitting in the tent but there was a woman with me. She just opened the flap and walked in. I couldn’t move or talk.” She paused and finished her coffee, then held the mug out hopefully to Bobby who obligingly filled it back up, ignoring Dean's similar gesture.  
  
“Where was I?”  
  
“A strange woman in your tent,” Dean growled.  
  
“Right. So she just touches my forehead, waves these feathers in front of me and starts chanting. I can see all this light being drawn out of me into the feathers. Different colors of light, in gem tones. It was really pretty, and I felt really... high. Then when there wasn’t any more light, she lit the feathers with a match. They flared up and turned to ash, and then she walked out. That’s it. That’s all that happened.”  
  
“And there was no sign of her when you woke up?” Dean asked. Bobby, having heard the story earlier, was quiet.  
  
“No sign of her,” Jessica hedged. “But, uh, there was ash smeared on my face and arms. That’s why I took a shower. Bobby thought I should wash it off immediately. I was also pretty gross.”  
  
Dean looked at Bobby who just nodded. “I checked out the tent. There’s ash, but no sign anyone was there. She seems fine.”  
  
“Fantastic! So we go out of our skulls --one of us literally--,” Jess rolled her eyes, “to try and make you better, and some strange woman just randomly shows up one night, burns some feathers and you’re magically cured?”  
  
Jess nodded. “Magically,” she repeated in a serious tone.  
  
Dean glared.  
  
“Glad to see you kids are picking up right where you left off, and I think we all know who has to be behind this.”  
  
“Sam,” Dean said grimly. “Where the hell is he?”  
  
“That’s what I asked,” Jessica said primly, draining her third cup of coffee.

~~~~~

  
The answer to that became apparent when two hours later the door flew open and Sam rushed in, panicked and out of breath.  
  
“Where is she, is she okay?” he demanded.  
  
“Nice to see you, too,” Dean drawled. “Did you bring back my car?”  
  
Sam gave him a look of impatient frustration, but then Jessica ran into the room and leaped on him and anything else had to wait.

~~~~~

  
“So... you were  _where_  again, exactly?”  
  
“Oklahoma City,” Sam shrugged, or as much of a shrug as he could manage with Jessica draped over his side with her legs across his lap. “I remembered some people I’d heard mentioned once, saw a reference online, and then I had that vision... I had a hunch and it played out.”  
  
Dean and Bobby traded uneasy looks.  
  
“Played out, huh,” Bobby repeated. “Would it have killed you to have filled anyone else in? Or called? Or taken the damn cell phone I got you?”  
  
Sam looked a little shamefaced. “Sorry, I think I was a little crazy there for a while. I just... saw a chance and leaped at it.”  
  
“What did it cost?” Dean asked quietly, well aware there was nothing for free in the world, and no real miracles out there.  
  
Sam gave him a defiant look. “Nothing I couldn’t afford to lose.”  
  
“That’s not an answer, Sam.”  
  
“What  _did_  it cost?” Jessica asked, looking at him with a frown.  
  
Sam stared at her face for a long moment, then smiled and brushed hair from her eyes. “Really, nothing. They wanted a favor, just to look at something for them. It’s not a big deal, they just needed someone with a psychic gift like mine to look at something and that’s all.”  
  
“Who are these people again?” Bobby asked.  
  
“We’re hunters, Bobby. I love you, man, but these people...vthey saved Jessica’s life. I’m not going to tell you about them so they can go on some super-secret hunter hit list. Who they are doesn’t matter. It’s over. Let it go.”  
  
Dean waited until Sam took Jessica with him to get his stuff out of the Impala then met Bobby’s eyes with a serious look. “He’s lying.”  
  
“I know,” Bobby said heavily.  
  
“Son of a bitch,” Dean swore.  
  
“What are you going to do about it?” Bobby asked.  
  
Dean threw his hands up. “What can I do about it? He’s obviously not gonna budge. And he did save her... just keep my eyes open I guess. Try and save the day when whatever stupid thing he pulled comes back to bite us all on the ass.”  
  
“You watch your back, Dean. Nothing good comes of lying to your partners. He’s already in over his head, and he doesn’t even know he’s standing in the water yet.”  
  
“Yeah,” Dean agreed grimly. “I know.”  
  
  
 **Chapter Ten**  
  
They stayed at Bobby’s for the next few months while Jessica healed. She was ninety percent better after whatever had happened in the tent that night, but that last ten percent was slow going. She couldn't tolerate loud nopises and was prone to slurring words and passing out with little warning when she was tired. It wasn’t a quick convalescence and Jessica wasn't the most laid-back patient. Bobby chided her for thinking that she could just walk away from something like that without a mark. She  _was_  healing, it just took time.  
  
Things were... sorta back to normal. Dean trained with Jess and helped Bobby fix up some of his project cars as the weather slowly warmed. Sam, who had resumed holing up in the library, was easier to coax outdoors than he had been before the latest misadventures. He was even joining them for wrestling matches with questionable rules out of sightline of the house and for trips into town. He had also picked up the habit of long solitary walks at night,which didn’t thrill Dean, but he figured Sam was working through a lot of things about his future and the changes in his life. Dean was no longer sure what books Sam was studying, or if he was really studying anything at all. His brother closed the door now when he was in the library, and everything was always stacked neatly whenever Dean barged in.

~~~~~

  
Around the middle of March, Sam said he needed to take a trip back to Stanford and clear up some business left unfinished.  
  
“What business?” Jessica asked.  
  
Sam shrugged, folding clothes neatly into his duffle bag. “Not a big deal. Just some things with the law school. I’ve been trying to do it on the phone, but we keep getting our wires crossed and there’s some lingering financial crap attached. You don’t want to go, do you?”  
  
Jessica snorted. “Back to Palo Alto? Not a chance. My family is still there.”  
  
“Speaking of which,” Dean said walking in. “Did you ever hear back from them?”  
  
“They got my letter." She shrugged. "They aren’t happy. I didn’t know you could be that hysterical in text. I would feel worse but my father tried to point out that legally I’m still under their guardianship until I prove my mental fitness or some crap like that. I don’t remember what happened when I got... sick, so I figure I’ll just keep my distance until their need to control my every breath subsides a little.”  
  
Dean snorted his opinion of that. “How did they reach you?”  
  
Jess shrugged. “Bobby worked something out. I give him things to send, he gives me mail.”  
  
“I hear you say you were going somewhere, Sam?” Dean asked.  
  
“Stanford. Probably about a week or so. Nothing with hunting or anything, just college stuff to clear up.”  
  
“You want company?”  
  
“No,” Sam shook his head. “I think my risking getting spotted is bad enough. But I know who I have to meet with and they aren’t in the same social circle as Jess’s dad. I can get in, do what I need to do, and get out. You guys stay here and remind Bobby why he didn’t have kids.”

~~~~~

  
A few days after Sam departed in one of Bobby’s projects, Jessica was amusing herself going through the Impala’s trunk. It hadn’t been cleaned in ages and there were all sorts of fine debris that needed to be swept and vacuumed out.  
  
“What’s this?” She fished a thin leather journal out from where it was wedged between a box of silver shot and the trunk lining. Flipping through it she saw letters in a neat print handwriting, usually in purple but sometimes blue or black, and sketchings of angels everywhere. It only took her a second to realize that it definitely wasn’t Dean’s.  
  
For starters, she could  _read_  the handwriting.  
  
“Dean?”  
  
Dean looked up from where he was trying to fasten on a hose under the hood and squinted.  
  
“That’s...” he walked over and took the book from her almost reverently, rubbing his hands off on his pants before touching the soft leather. “It’s Jordan’s journal. I stole it from her and read it once while we were traveling together since she wouldn’t talk to me about what was going on. It’s just a collection of thoughts and things she saw. I gave it back to her but it must have fallen out of her backpack.” A picture fell out into his hand and he stared at it with Jess looking on at his side. Jessica, who had seen Jordan’s bedroom with all its pictures and drawings, easily recognized it as a very young Jordan Black. She was wearing an overstuffed snowsuit and making an angel in the powdery white. Or trying to, there seemed to be quite a lot of interference from a dog with a very long tongue.  
  
“This needs to go to her father,” Dean said finally. “The journal and the picture.”  
  
“You want to mail it to him?”  
  
“Actually... do you mind if I go in person?” he asked, watching her face for hesitation. “I just feel like I owe it to her in some way to maybe just check in with him sometimes.  
  
Jessica just smiled wryly. “And you’re tired of being cooped up and want to hit the road. I take it I’m not invited? You and Sam keep leaving me here and I’m going to have no choice but to sleep with Bobby for company, you know.”  
  
“Just as long as you don’t expect me to,” Dean retorted with a smile that didn't reach his eyes.

~~~~~

  
Frank Black’s kitchen looked exactly like Dean remembered. He hadn’t expected the wallpaper or furnishings to have changed, of course, but even the mail and paper stacked neatly on the desk and the dishes in the drying rack looked as they had when Dean had last seen them months ago. It gave a sort of timeless feeling to the house, and looking into Frank Black’s weary and penetrating eyes, Dean didn’t think that was a good thing.  
  
Frank flipped slowly through the journal in silence. Three more photos fell out while he examined it. Dean didn’t recognize the people in two of them, but it was obvious from his amused expression that Frank did. It was the first hint of any kind of light emotion Dean had sensed from the man and it slipped quickly away.  
  
“Have you... gotten anything else from Jordan?” Dean asked after Frank closed the journal and laid it on the table.  
  
“No. Have you?”  
  
Dean shook his head. “That was just underneath some stuff in the trunk. I felt like you should have it.”  
  
“And felt like you should drive halfway across the country to bring it to me?” Frank raised an eyebrow.  
  
“It seemed... right.”  
  
“Something is troubling you.”  
  
“It’s not your problem,” Dean shrugged.  
  
“When you left here, you were with your brother and his fiancé. Now you’re alone.”  
  
“They haven’t ditched me, if that’s what you’re thinking,” Dean retorted, stung.  
  
Frank spread his hands. “I’m not thinking anything, just an observation.”  
  
“There’s been some... problems,” Dean relented after a moment. He didn’t feel anything from Frank but neutrality and maybe what Dean needed most was someone to talk to that wasn’t involved because he spent the next two hours spilling the entire story out, with a few edits about who exactly was sleeping with whom. He talked about Sam and hunting, and Jess with the curse and her almost dying. His roadtrip with his brother. Jessica’s rescue and miraculous recovery. His utter certainty that Sam was lying, or at least that there was more to the story than he had confessed to.  
  
“It just screws everything up,” Dean finished. “I have to be able to trust him at my back. Right now, I’m not even sure I trust him at my front.”  
  
“He wouldn’t say anything about this mysterious group he happened to remember just in time to save her life?” Frank asked, fingers steepled on the table in front on him.  
  
“No,” Dean said in disgust. “He hasn’t even been hunting since he was seventeen! And then he expects me to believe he just pulled something like this out of his ass? I’m half afraid he whistled up a demon and sold part of his soul to it.”  
  
There was a stillness to Frank’s face that made the hair on the back of Dean’s neck stand up. “What?” he asked sharply.  
  
Frank exhaled slowly. “Not a demon but... his mysterious group. I was just thinking during your story how surprised I was that neither of you had ever been approached by Millennium.”  
  
“No,” Dean said immediately. “There is no way. You warned us, Bobby warned us. Hell, Bobby apparently said he would throw us out and never let us darken his doorstep again if we even had a hint of involvement with Millennium. Sam wouldn’t have done that, not on his own without at least fucking mentioning it to me.”  
  
“You and Sam, maybe especially Sam, because Millennium appeals best to those who are easily snared by their intellect, are exactly the sort of people the Group finds most attractive. And they are very, very good at sniffing you out.”  
  
Dean stared at him. “Are you saying I’m stupid?”  
  
“No,” Frank gave a slight smile. “I’m saying that you and Sam approach the world in different ways, whatever the final outcome might be. You want to cut right to the heart of the matter. My impression of your brother is he would rather explore the possibilities: research, knowledge, secret histories.”  
  
“Yeah,” Dean snorted. “That’s Sam all over.”  
  
Frank nodded. “There’s also the Ourborous you said he saw in his dream.”  
  
“He has freaky visions, they don’t always mean anything,” Dean shrugged.  
  
“The Ourborous is the logo that Millennium uses.”  
  
They sat in silence for a few minutes. Then Dean swore and slammed a fist on the table. “He wouldn’t have.”  
  
“She was dying, Dean. He might not have felt he had time to debate about it.”  
  
Dean stood up and grabbed his jacket off the back of the chair. “I have to go. Thanks for your time.”  
  
“Thank you for bringing my daughter’s journal. May I ask how you are coping with your own gifts?”  
  
“Still looking for the receipt,” Dean said darkly. “But I’m hanging in there. Hoping something about them makes sense someday.”  
  
“I don’t think they are supposed to make sense. That isn’t their purpose.”  
  
Dean paused with his hand on the doorknob. “You know, you and Jordan -- that apple didn’t fall too far from the tree, there.”  
  
“We are all the products of our parentage. However wild we grow in life, we start from that singular beginning. Be safe.”  
  
“It isn’t my safety you need to worry about.” Dean didn’t know where his brother was, but he knew exactly how to find out.

~~~~~

  
The cemetery hadn’t been easy to reach. It was mostly a ruin and back deep in the woods.  
  
It was a miracle the cell towers had been able to find the phone.  
  
Dean tramped through deep grass, starlight and moonlight filtering gently down through budding trees and giving the entire scene a sense of peace which was completely lost on Dean. Every step made him angrier. Northern Michigan wasn’t California. Sam hadn’t even sorta lied about things this time and he wasn’t going to be able to squirm out of it.  
  
Once he saw gravestones, Dean paced around the back of the church so he could approach from the other side. He slowed his steps to quiet his movements. He had already known what he would find, but it still made his heart ache to see the proof.  
  
Sam was sitting alone on the cracked and crumbling steps to the bolted church doors in the old cemetery. He stared intently down the path, head moving slightly like he was looking for something. Occasionally he would glance down at his hand, then back up to the empty avenue. Dean got within five feet of him with Sam none the wiser before he spoke.  
  
“You son-of-a-bitch.”  
  
Sam started and fell into a defensive crouch, then realized who it was and straightened slowly.  
  
“Dean? What the hell are you doing here?”  
  
“What the hell am  _I_  doing here? Have you looked around Sam?! This doesn’t look like Stanford to me,” Dean spat.  
  
“How did you find me?” Sam demanded.  
  
“You thought Jessica’s father could track you by phone but didn’t think I could? That’s a low blow, Sam. Really low. Nice to know what you think of my skills.”  
  
Sam scowled. “I wasn’t thinking of your skills, I was thinking you wouldn’t have any reason to! What the hell are you  _doing here_?” he repeated his original question with more heat.  
  
“How could you do that without even telling me? Without telling her! Did you fucking sell out to Millennium, Sam?” he was in Sam’s face and had him by the collar before he could think better of it. “Answer me, goddamn it!”  
  
But Sam didn’t need to answer, it was all over his face. Shame, guilt, anger. He twisted free of Dean's grip and fell onto the unforgiving stone.  
  
“You did.” Dean's voice was flat and nearly toneless. “Damn you, Sam. Why the hell didn’t you talk to me?”  
  
Sam got back to his feet. “She was going to die, Dean! What were you going to say?  _No_?”  
  
“You know I wouldn’t have! I was just as desperate as you! But we should have talked about it. You know what they say about sleeping with all of the people your partners sleep with? I’ve got to tell you, Sam, our bed’s starting to get a little crowded. This wasn’t a decision you should have made alone!”  
  
Sam looked down and drew a deep breath. “I thought if it was just me, then... they couldn’t hold anything over you and Jess. If you didn’t know about it, then I was the only one they could reach.”  
  
“You’re an asshole. And a moron,” Dean said in disgust. “Not hold anything over us? What about  _you_ , jackass?”  
  
“I didn’t care about me,” Sam yelled. “I didn’t want her to die, and I didn’t want all of us to have to pay. So fuck you.”  
  
“Don't see the wedge this is already driving between us?” Dean asked quietly once the echoes of Sam’s shout had died in the quiet forest. “One favor, tit for tat, and there’s already lies and secrets pulling us apart. If you had told us in the first place, we all could have discussed the best thing to do to handle this. Together. Remember that, Sam?”  
  
Sam didn’t say anything, just hugged himself and glared.  
  
“What are you even doing here?” Dean asked, glancing out over the ancient tombstones. “I thought the ghosts only came out to play on Christmas Eve?”  
  
“Fetches, not ghosts, and that’s Christmas. They gather at other times too, in some places.”  
  
“What’s this lucky holiday?”  
  
Sam hesitated. “Ostara, the Vernal Equinox. It’s usually associated with rebirth.”  
  
“And you’re watching for... what?”  
  
Sam pulled a Polaroid from his pocket. “This guy.”  
  
“Why?” Dean asked simply, not even bothering to try and look.  
  
“I don’t know.”  
  
“And is this all they want for Jessica’s life?”  
  
Sam swallowed. “I don’t know that either.”  
  
“Jesus, Sam.”  
  
“Are you going to tell Jess?”  
  
“You’re damn right I’m going to tell Jess,” Dean snapped. “You should have done it in the first place, but unlike some people, I actually remember what I promised. This is a huge thing, Sam, and it affects  _all_ of us, not just your sorry ass.”  
  
Sam nodded, then lowered his voice. “Are you going to tell Bobby?”  
  
Dean gritted his teeth. “I should, but no. We can discuss that whenever you drag yourself back. All three of us.”  
  
Dean gave one last disgusted look around and then headed for the gate, trying to block out the knowledge that in Sam’s eyes, he was walking up an avenue of the dead.  
  
“You’re just going to leave?” Sam called out behind him. There was a plaintive, almost lost note in Sam’s voice that made Dean hesitate, on the verge of turning back. He could stay with Sam until dawn when the restless spirits returned to sleep. Keep him company and just... be with him. The entire situation reminded him of Sam as a child sitting in the snow at Pastor Jim’s church on Christmas Eve. There had been broken steps and ancient tombstones there too, and a congregation of the dead that only his brother could see.  
  
But Sam wasn’t a kid any more. Neither of them were, and Dean forced himself to keep walking.  
  
“Like you said, Sam. This isn’t my business. When should I tell Jess you’ll be back?”  
  
“A couple of days,” Sam finally answered from behind him. “I have to report in person and then I’ll head back.”  
  
“In person, huh -- a phone call won’t cut it? They that eager to get their hands on you again?”  
  
“Dean...”  
  
“Forget it. I’ll let her know.”  
  
It was a very long, cold and lonely drive back to South Dakota.  
  
  
 **Epilogue**  
  
When Sam pulled into the yard at Bobby’s a week later, it was dusk. Sunset was a scarlet stain on the Western skyline and deep shadows pooled across the yard in the violets and blues of evening.  
  
He had called from a gas station about an hour away. The hesitant and brief conversation had, on its surface, just been about letting them know he was close. But underneath the words, Dean and Jessica were fairly certain what he had really been asking was if he was welcome.  
  
Jess was waiting in the driveway when Sam pulled up in the battered clunker he had borrowed. He climbed out, and just stood there somewhat awkwardly until she closed the distance and slid her arms around him, hugging tight. Over her shoulder, Sam could see Dean leaning against the house, arms crossed and expression remote.  
  
Sam closed his eyes and buried his face in her hair. “I couldn’t let you die,” he breathed, and felt her nod against him. “How’s Dean?”  
  
Jess let go and stepped back so she could see his face. “Not happy. Do you blame him?”  
  
“I did what I thought I had to do to save your life.” Sam didn’t sound defensive about it, just tired.  
  
She sighed. “I know, Sam.”  
  
“But you aren’t happy, either.”  
  
“I’m happy to be alive,” Jess said honestly. “But I’m worried about your new friends, you know? I’m worried about you.”  
  
“They aren’t my friends; they’re just some people I did a job for. Straight trade.”  
  
“Watching spirits in a graveyard?” Jess raised a troubled brow.  
  
“All I did was sit there so I could tell them if I saw one in particular. There’s nothing wrong with that.”  
  
“That you know of,” Dean said coolly. Jessica and Sam had been so focused on their conversation, both of them had missed Dean’s approach and jumped at his words. “Did you think that maybe it was a test, dumbass? Maybe they only  _thought_  you had  _gifts_ ,” he spat the word, “before. Now they know for sure.”  
  
“Millennium isn’t a bunch of freaks, Dean!” Sam argued. “They’re scholars and scientists and historians, they know what’s out there and they just want to help people. Like we do. Mostly they work as a consulting group for crimes that don’t even involve any of our type of stuff.”  
  
Dean snorted. “Sounds like you drank all your Kool-aid, Sammy. Help people do  _what_ , exactly? Maybe this little indoctrination session you attended was the entire point of all of this. You certainly seem to have a changed opinion of your new best buds.”  
  
“I didn’t say I trusted them, Dean! Just that ...maybe they aren’t the bogeymen people say they are. They saved, Jess.”  
  
“And I appreciate that, Sam. I really do. But you know what? I trust people. I trust that Frank Black knows more about this stuff than we do, and he advised us to stay away. And what about Bobby, Sam? You think _Bobby_  is blowing smoke up our ass about the Millennium group? The man practically raised us,” Dean hissed, “and he said we’ll be strangers to him if he even thinks we have any involvement with them. That’s enough for me right there. It should be enough for you!”  
  
“She would have died!”  
  
“You should have talked to us before you jumped off the fucking bridge!” Dean yelled back  
  
“Shut-up! Both of you,” Jessica snapped. “It’s done with now. I’m alive, Sam seems okay, let’s just... move on. This doesn’t change anything.”  
  
Sam and Dean continued to glare at each other until Jessica growled and Sam finally dropped his gaze.  
  
“What, uh,  _did_  you tell Bobby?” he finally asked in a more subdued tone.  
  
“That Stanford was taking longer than you expected and you’d be back when you showed up. Which means that now  _I’ve_  lied to him about the Millennium crap too. Thanks, Sam. Still think your decisions don’t affect us?”  
  
Jess raked a hand through her wind-blown hair. “That’s enough. Really. Sam’s business with them is done, so let’s just try and leave that door shut. Sam won’t play anymore clandestine footsie with possibly evil organizations, I’ll try not to contract any more fatal curses, and Dean will mention anyone else he sees getting angelic escorts. Deal?”  
  
Dean shrugged noncommittally, but Sam nodded under Jess’s heated glare.  
  
“Fantastic. I told Bobby dinner would be ready when he got home. You guys can chop vegetables while I get the rest of the stuff going.” She didn’t wait for a response, just spun on one foot and stormed into the house leaving Sam and Dean alone in the yard.  
  
“Are we okay?” Sam asked his brother in a low voice.  
  
Dean stared at him for a moment; jaw clenched, then sighed and relaxed a little. “I need you not to lie to me, Sam. Or do things behind my back. This thing we’ve got... we aren’t going to make it without trust. Do you understand that? I know you were a little out of your head over Jessica, but that excuse only gets you so far.”  
  
Sam nodded. “I know. I just...” his voice trailed off lamely.  
  
Dean muttered something, then held his arms out and Sam walked into them.  
  
“Never again, Sam,” Dean said fiercely. “We do this shit together.”  
  
Sam nodded against Dean’s shoulder, grateful for the forgiveness of the embrace. Tucked into the back pocket of his jeans, a business card with an Ouroboros rested like a weight against his heart.

  
  
 **END**


End file.
